


Welcome Home

by BEB0P105, bugabear



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Action/Adventure, Bisexual Male Character, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), Post-Apocalypse, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-04-26 11:42:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14401440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BEB0P105/pseuds/BEB0P105, https://archiveofourown.org/users/bugabear/pseuds/bugabear
Summary: Marlowe Edwards, a conscripted soldier of the United States army, has survived. The Sino-American war has ended, furthering global instability. Reaping the rewards of survival, Marlowe, his wife Nora, and infant son Shaun, have recently moved to Boston, Massachusetts in hopes of a comfortable life in a world awaiting Armageddon. But as the retired soldier knows all too well, it's that war... War never changes.





	1. Vault-111

                                                                      

 

“No, no please... Nora!" Marlowe struggled to his feet, feeling thousands of metaphorical pins and needles impaling his lower limbs. His centre of balance betrayed him, and he staggered to the cryo pod directly across from his own; its sole inhabitant, his wife, Nora. He was in a darkened chamber inside the confines of Vault-111, just one of many fallout shelters to be utilized in the event of nuclear catastrophe. Unfortunately for everyone, one such catastrophe has occurred. For many, the end had come.

The lone dweller of this particular chamber of Vault-111 clambered to his feet and desperately fumbled with the controls of his spouse's cryo pod and engaged the emergency release switch. His breathing was a staccato of panic as the pod's release protocols engage and the canopy opens with a slow, pneumatic hiss.

"Come on! Come on, come on, come on!" Marlowe shouted between coughing fits. He struggled to suck in another breath, leaning weakly on the control panel, practically falling into his wife's post-mortem lap. He was more than distraught and mournful as he took in the absence of his child and the murder of his wife.

 

* * *

 

Bowed over her cold, thawing body, the traumatic recollection was brought to the forefront of his mind. He remembered sitting in his pod, helpless and unable to intervene as two figures wearing hazmat suits took orders a man with a large revolver to take his child from Nora. Expected by everyone, Nora resisted. Shaun cried out as she fought with one of the kidnappers to keep her child. The man with the revolver barked a warning, and without missing a beat, shot Nora in the chest. Marlowe's heart sank tremendously and for a moment he could only watch Nora's life leave her body as her figure slumped forward and limp. Her arms dropped, and one of the hamzat-clad figures, facing no resistance now, took the wailing newborn and backed away from the pod.

 

 

"Go. Get out of here-- Let's go," ordered the man, remorseless in his most recent kill. He stalled, and turned to a sobbing Marlowe, who was hammering the inside of his pod, tears streaming down his face. The man narrowed his eyes and peered more closely at the view port of Marlowe's pod and grinned. It's a dark grin, an analytical one. In spite of that, his eyes are... Empty. Soulless, even. "...At least we still have the backup."

Marlowe was left to his sorrow as the murderer of his wife and kidnapper of his child walk out of view. He continued to pound at the inside of his cryo pod.  His vows of revenge are swallowed entirely by the machinery around him . Sobbing as his consciousness again faded away, an automated voice informs him that the cryostasis sequence is resuming. He took one last look at Nora, and closed his eyes.

 

* * *

 

Returning to the present day and still drowning in a torrential whirlpool of grief and anger, Marlowe gingerly removed his wife's wedding ring. "I'll find who did this." he vowed, clutching her ring to his chest. "I'll get Shaun back. I promise." He wiped the tears from his eyes and closed the hatch on Nora's pod, now seemingly a coffin for his beloved. He took in the details of her face, from the tiny mole on her jaw, to every curl in her ebony hair.

"I promise."

Marlowe exhaled, and a cloud of vapor to escaped him. Armed with vengeance, and set on a very specific goal, the widowed Marlowe looked around the chamber. More cryo pods containing his neighbours, the other residents of Sanctuary Hills, lined the walls of the room. A cursory, but horrified look at each pod while he makes his way for the door concludes that he is the sole-remaining dweller of Vault-111. He trips over a skeleton in a crumbling blue jumpsuit and yelps. How long had he been frozen?

"If I... Remember the way out..." Marlowe tried to recollect the introductory escort through the vault. It felt so recent to him, but the deteriorating condition of the vault's hallways shed doubt on his perception of time.

He made for the door at the end of the hallway and attempted to engage the manual release, mustering what strength he had to raise the door. It was to no avail; the door refused to open. Marlowe swore and looked around for another way out, quickly deciding on the door to his right, electing to ignore the sign posted above that designated any further progress as restricted. Walking down a short flight of stairs, he froze. Sitting on the other side of the sole window in the hallway was the largest insect he had ever seen. Though it proceeded to move on, Marlowe remained still, wondering what in the hell he had just witnessed.

Instinctively, he picked up a collapsible baton sitting on a crate. Whatever world he'd woken up to was surely to be a nightmare. With a flick of his wrist, the baton extended, and Marlowe hesitantly continued.

Vault-111 made no attempts to look like anything more than a decaying mausoleum as Marlowe ventured further. He passed through a common area and found a messenger bag, and worked up the nerve to kill a pair of giant roaches using only the security baton and his boots. He sprinted through a generator room with arcing electricity, spotting another skeleton of a Vault-tec employee. His journey however came to a sudden halt in the overseer's office, who's corpse still sat in a fallen chair at a central desk. A brief exploration of the room resulted in the acquisition of a 10mm pistol, three boxes of the appropriate rounds as well as a holster, and a trio of stimpacks. He correctly deduced that the terminal at the overseer's desk would have the controls for the evacuation tunnel's door slaved to it.

The tunnel was slightly more preserved than the rest of the vault. If he hadn't already seen the majority of the decay, Marlowe might have been fooled into thinking that the Vault was recently abandoned. His footsteps echoed slightly as he wandered through. It reminded him of a military base in Toronto he'd been stationed just prior to his deployment to Alaska, shortly after his conscription. It had the same deafening effect as the base, a hallway so quiet it made you so aware of your own breathing that you wondered if you were doing so too heavily. He used to dread those memories, but at least during that time, Nora was still alive. Not like now. Not at all.

A last door opened up and revealed the main entrance area of Vault-111. Half a dozen corpses littered the floor, most of them wearing lab coats. A single giant cockroach inhabited the area, which Marlowe reflexively shot and killed. He stared at the massive, cog-shaped blast door while he carefully stepped over the skeletons of former scientists, and stopped when he reached the door's control panel. In a bulletproof case a the emergency release on an otherwise unremarkable control panel. A socket adjacent to the protected release button suggested that Marlowe use the Pip-Boy at his feet to interface with it. Once again, Marlowe carefully removed the device from the once-fleshier wrist of a deceased Vault-tec employee and powered it on. The device cycled through a start-up routine, which only lasted a maximum of ten seconds, before being ready for use. Marlowe explored the device, thumbing through the settings until he found the Vault interfacing options.

"Here's hoping you still work." Marlowe whispered to the Pip-Boy. "I don't want to be trapped in here."

He plucked the jack from the back of the device and plugged it into the port on the control panel. There was a beat, and the casing over the emergency release button flipped open. New text appeared on the Pip-Boy's screen.

 

_**'VAULT DOOR REMOTE ACCESS READY'** _

 

Marlowe took a deep breath and put what felt like his entire weight on the button. Rewarded by a muffled mechanical 'clunk' sound and the blaring of the Vault's klaxon alarm. The robotic voice from his cryo pod came to life again over the P.A. system, confirming the cycling sequence, followed by a request to stand back. Marlowe officially equipped the Pip-Boy to his wrist as a large engine hanging from the ceiling motioned forward and pull the door from its resting place and pulled it to the side. 

The cool feeling of fresh air caressed Marlowe's body as he crossed the service bridge and through the threshold of the Vault. Sunlight poured in from the ceiling of the cavernous room. He looked up at it. That was the world, in whatever state the nuclear bombardment had left it in. Marlowe wasn't sure he was ready, nor could he recall exactly the appropriate amount of wait time to remain in shelter during a nuclear fallout. The elevator descended anyway, and if the bastards that took his son didn't all have to wear hazmat suits, then it couldn't be that bad. Marlowe would weather it. For Shaun. For Nora.

The sole survivor of Vault-111 stepped onto the elevator. The world waited. He would get his revenge.

He would live.

He would endure.

 


	2. Out of Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Free from Vault-111 and at last able to take in the state of the world, Marlowe revisits Sanctuary Hills, hoping to find any signs of the people who took Shaun and murdered Nora.

                                                                     

 

* * *

 

It might have been his brain adjusting, but the elevator ride to the surface felt like it lasted hours. Sure, the elevator was slow, and surprisingly still functioning after however many years without maintenance, but this was anxiety-inducing on the highest caliber. Marlowe inspected his pip-boy. The time was shortly after ten-thirty in the morning. Curiously, the wrist-mounted device neglected on telling him the year. 

Marlowe continued to steel himself as the elevator finally made it to the surface, at last revealing to him the destruction wrought by the bombs.  His shoulders slumped, in awe or distress or a sick, depressing mix of both . The world he knew from before had died. As far as the unaltered eye could see was ruin. He could see the sign of the Red Rocket in the distance, and the dilapidated shelters that used to be the houses of Sanctuary Hills. All of these were now standing husks of the past. 

"It's all gone..." he mumbled to himself like a reflex. He dropped to his knees in utter disbelief. His brain strained to comprehend it all.

The sole survivor let out a very shaky, very stuttered breath. There was no sound or sign of an active civilization, hell-- there weren't even any birds in the sky. Marlowe wondered about many things. Was it only him left? What about his assailants? He was duped into being trapped in a cryostasis pod for an indeterminate amount of time, during which all manner of things could have happened. Had ten days passed? Ten weeks? Years? Centuries? There were too many questions for Marlowe to process at once, so he grounded himself.

 

"Start simple, Marlowe," he said to himself, before dipping back into thought. ' _ One question at a time, so... _ '

He inhaled slowly, and held his breath and focused. After counting to three, he exhaled. "Can I go home?"

' _ Easy enough, _ ' Marlowe thought. He picked himself up, and procured the messenger bag he had dropped after stepping off of the elevator. He remembered the path home; he always enjoyed visiting the creek when he needed to take a drag from a cigarette. He didn't smoke very often, but when he did it was often to calm his nerves. The memories of the Sino-American war weren't particularly kind. Marlowe quietly cursed the war he fought for a country that wasn't his as he walked over the wooden bridge that spanned over the creek.

Sanctuary Hills-- or rather, what remained of it-- sat quietly and derelict at the bottom of the hill that Vault-111 resided in. Formerly, it was home to a dozen privileged households, Marlowe's included. The Ables, the Whitfields, and the Sumners, to name a few, all resided within Sanctuary, though not all of them made it into the Vault. Marlowe wondered what became of those that didn't make it. As he turned left after making it to the sidewalk, he could swear he heard an old, familiar tune. Ink Spots? He was rushed by a feeling of nostalgia, nearly feeling at home again, as if nothing had changed. Then, almost as an afterthought, Marlowe pondered what became of...

"Codsworth?"

Marlowe spotted an obscure character in the distance, about where his house would be. He thought he was mistaken, assuming the bright morning sun was deceiving his eyesight. He raised a flat hand to his forehead and shielded his eyes in hopes of a better look at the figure that blissfully hummed along with an absent tune while it tended to some dead shrubbery. It was the unmistakable shape of a Mister Handy general labour robot, an automaton with three tentacle-like appendages dangling eloquently from a single, hovering ball.

As if on queue, all three eye protruding eyes turned to face Marlowe, shortly followed by the pivoting of its body. "As I live and breathe..." the mechanical irises of Codsworth's camera shutter-like eyes widened. "It's... It's R _ EALLY _ you!" The shock and desperation in the domestic robot's voice nearly brought Marlowe to tears. He let out an explosive sigh of relief, even chuckling for a beat. 

"I don't believe it!" Marlowe whispered incredulously. He placed his hands on either side of Codsworth's chassis and leaned against his robotic butler with his forehead. He shook his head, still somewhat in a state of disbelief. "You're still here, Codsworth!"

Codsworth sounded amused this time, and chuckled. "Well of course  I'm still here, mister Edwards." An eye contorted and lowered to meet Marlowe at eye-level. "Surely you don't think a little radiation could deter the pride of General Atomics International?" the centre eye lowered this time, and blinked. "But err... You seem the worse for wear. Best not let the wife see you in that state, hm?"

Marlowe winced, and let go of Codsworth, righting himself. "Eh, where is the missus, by the way?" Codsworth sounded concerned as he looked around, and bobbed in a v-formation, as if to look behind his master.

"They... Came into the Vault, Codsworth." Marlowe's breathe trembled again. "Those bastards, they... Murdered her."

No reaction came from the hovering robot for a moment. Maybe he was shocked?

"Maybe you saw them?" Marlowe asked, breaking the silence. His tone was slightly more hopeful. If Codsworth had been residing here since the bombs fell, then there was a chance that he saw those murderers make off with his son, Shaun. "They were armed-- Wearing strange outfits?"

All three of Codsworth's eyes looked down and blinked, then looked back at Marlowe. "Only Ms. Rosa's boy running around in his Halloween costume, I'm afraid. More than a week early, as well! I swear, the nerve of that woman leaving her brat unsupervised..." He informed with a scoff to prelude, seemingly rolling his eyes. He caught himself though, and cleared his non-existent throat. "Err, not like this family, sir!" He advocated. "You and the missus have always been such a responsible couple."

"Codsworth..." Marlowe shook his head. Did his automated help not understand? "She's gone! And they took Shaun! They kidnapped my boy, damn it!"

"Hrm... It's worse than I thought." Codsworth inferred. "You're suffering from... hunger-induced paranoia. Not eating properly for 200 years will do that, I'm afraid." he chuckled.

"Two hun..." It was Marlowe's turn to play detective. "You're acting very weird, Codsworth. What's wrong, pal?" asked the sole survivor with genuine concern. "You can tell me-- Trust me."

"I..." Codsworth's voice began to tremble. "Oh sir, it's been just horrible!" finally, admittance. "Two centuries with no one to talk to! No one to serve!" the pride of General Atomics emotionally crumpled, much to the surprise of Marlowe. He descended low enough to the ground that his single thruster singed the dead grass below him. After making a full rotation and setting his eyes back onto his recently awoken master. "I spent the first ten years trying to keep the floors waxed, but nothing gets out nuclear fallout from vinyl wood.  **NOTHING!** "

"Codsworth..." Marlowe attempted to interject, but no success.

"And don't get me started about the futility of dusting a collapsed house. And the car! The CAR! How do you polish rust!?"

Marlowe tried again. "Codsworth!" he shouted. "Stay with me, buddy! Focus!" He could tell his robot was embarrassed as it rose back to an eye-level. If Marlowe wanted his friend back to a coherent state of mechanical mind, it was his turn to play caretaker. He decided to start with some flattery. "You're ah... You're looking good for a robot that survived an atomic war."

"Oh, well I have picked up a few minor scratches and, dare I say... stains, but all in all, the inner workings are top notch." The Mister Handy sounded grateful for the compliment. "And I see you've taken up a new look yourself! The missus would be over the moon right now if she saw how that suit well, suits you. That, or absolutely hysterical. She is-- Err, was an enigma."

Another moment of silence.

"I am sorry for your loss, mister Marlowe. The world has lost one of its best. And Shaun... I should hope he is okay."

Marlowe sighed heavily. "All the time you were here... Did you see anyone? Anyone at all coming out of the Vault?"

"If only I had, sir!" Codsworth testified. "You've no idea the desperation for human contact one develops over two-hundred years."

"You keep saying that-- Could it have really been that long?" Marlowe had an air of disbelief in his voice. After being trapped in a vault cut off from time, beating a giant cockroach to death, and his robot butler surviving the fallout of a nuclear explosion, one would think Marlowe would have been quick to acknowledge the great time lapse method that was the cryo chamber Vault-tec tricked him into securing a place in. Admittedly, he'd always wanted to live well past his time, albeit maybe as a robot, but certainly not like this.

"A bit over two-hundred and ten actually, sir. Give or take a little for the Earth's rotation and some minor dings to the old chronometer there."

"Jesus..." Marlowe sighed, hands cupped over his face. The silent acceptance made him weary.

"My, you look positively famished! To be fair, you are about two centuries late for dinner, ha ha ha. Perhaps I can whip you up a snack?"

Marlowe tried dismissing the offer with a wave of his hand, but ultimately gave in. "I'd... Yeah, sure. Whatever's left, I guess."

"Oh." Codsworth sounded surprised. "Well, err... You caught me, sir. The refrigerator's broken, so we're all out of fresh fruits and vegetables."

"Not even some Fancy Lads? Those things last forever."

"Not even the Fancy Lads, sir."

"I hate this place."

 

* * *

 

For the next forty minutes, Marlowe simply sat on the front step of his home while Codsworth hovered from one dead shrub to another, occasionally glancing at him. The awkward silence was palpable. So much so that the friendly neighbourhood automaton stopped to address Marlowe. "Sir, if I may ask... What do you intend to do about young Shaun?"

"I'm going to find him," he answered, flatly. "I'm going to get my son back."

"What a splendid intention, sir." Codsworth sounded pleased. "Perhaps a quick look around the neighbourhood might help?" he suggested, waving his appendages at the collapsed structures."

"What do you mean?"

"A few of the houses-- including our own-- are still standing relatively strong." it was a great point; if they weren't here, their journey would warrant a rest. Sanctuary Hills was as good a place to stay for a night. "And as much as I do so hate to ring my own bell, but our geraniums are still the envy of Sanctuary Hills." Codsworth added, coyly.

Marlowe cracked a small smile. Needless to say, he was proud of his robot companion. Two centuries out of social practice, but still as helpful as he was the day he’d put him together. The jumpsuit-sporting widower drew his pistol. "Sounds like a plan, Codsworth. Lead the way."

From there the pair spent the better part of the next hour scanning every house in Sanctuary Hills that wasn't a crumpled heap of debris on its foundation. There were no signs of the murderous man with the revolver or the hazmat-clad figures that took his newborn child, only massive, bloated house flies and more of the giant roaches Marlowe had encountered in Vault-111. He was disappointed, to say the least, but glad to vent some due frustration on a handful of abominable insects. Codsworth seemed to enjoy it too. It was shortly before noon when they concluded their search, coming up dry.

"I am terribly sorry, sir. It appears they passed through this one stoplight town."

Marlowe sighed. "Well, what then?" he asked rhetorically, throwing his arms up. "I have no leads, Codsworth. They might as well be gone!"

"Sir..." Codsworth rebuked Marlowe's ire. "You may be a man out of time, but surely you don't think it's only you, Shaun, and the kidnappers left on this planet?"

Marlowe perked his head up, slightly embarrassed. "I... You think?"

"What about Concord, sir? I've seen people in that area, and they're only slightly heavily armed..." He suggested. "They only pummeled me with sticks a few times before I had to run back home."

"Thank you, Codsworth." Marlowe was truly grateful.

"Shall I accompany you, sir? The people there aren't... As put together, as I am."

Marlowe pondered the notion. As nice as it would be to have Codsworth tag along, Marlowe didn't want to lose another member of his family today. He dismissed Codsworth. "Thanks, but... I think I'll manage."

Codsworth didn't protest. "Very well, sir! I shall remain here, and secure the home-front!" Comically, he tried to salute, and a victorious chyme played from his external speakers. Marlowe didn't even know he could do that. "You remember the way, I'm sure; just across the southern footbridge out of the neighborhood and past the Red Rocket station."

"Be back in time for dinner, pal." Marlowe gave a casual salute and made his way out of the neighbourhood. The day wasn't a total loss, in spite of the grim awakening he received. Nora might have been gone, but Shaun was still out there, somewhere. He was scared, and alone... Wanting his family. Marlowe felt the same way.

Armed with an elderly pistol and wearing an uncomfortable blue jumpsuit, the sole survivor of Vault-111 set out for his child, and anyone that would help him do so. Even without any solid leads, the former soldier had a mission.

One he was determined to complete.

 


	3. This Town Ain't Big Enough...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The meeting of man's best friend and a ghost town gunfight. Marlowe's day is just getting more and more... More.

                                                                      

 

* * *

 

Almost immediately after leaving Sanctuary, Marlowe nearly tripped over the corpse of a drifter and some sort of skinned beast he couldn’t quite comprehend. He cursed purely from the slight fright it gave him, but was rewarded with the dead man's discarded sawn-off shotgun and a few shells. He parted the dead with a satisfactory snicker and carried on for Concord. His journey stalled again though when he drew closer to the Red Rocket truck stop.

Marlowe was fond of that particular location; when he'd been honourably discharged from the military after the Anchorage campaign, he purchased an old, pre-atomic motorcycle purely out of impulse. As he roared through the snow-covered streets, through Concord, and up the icy hill to Sanctuary, the bike gave out, and practically fell apart beneath Marlowe. In the midst of kicking himself in the sunset, a redheaded woman named Ruby wearing a Red Rocket jumpsuit offered him assistance. Embarrassed, but humbled, Marlowe accepted her help and the two escorted the crippled bike up the rest of the hill and rolled it into the garage.

Setting another memory behind him, Marlowe remembered that the bike was never actually finished; it'd be left in the garage and due for new brake lines. He quietly made his way for the open garage, scanning his surroundings and expecting the worst. The worst never came, and the bike was absent. Marlowe sighed, not knowing what he expected. A bike to remain safe in an abandoned garage for two centuries? How foolish. The garage was still crowded with abandoned parts and a maintenance station for power armour. Workbenches sat at either side of the room.

The fluorescent light hanging from the ceiling flickered, making an already jumpy Marlowe tense up and raise the recently procured shotgun at the outside. Nothing came of the lackluster investigation. He exhaled rather loudly, initially unaware he had been holding his breath for the straight minute he'd expected a hostile to ambush him while he searched the garage. Just as Marlowe lowered his guard, a crash from the other room startled him again, followed by the sound of claws scratching against a linoleum floor.

Marlowe remembered the corpse of the skinned beast just after he'd crossed the old north bridge. Could it be another one? Even in death it didn't look particularly friendly. The man out of time, a retired soldier, leveled his shotgun at the door to the store. Quietly, he crept further inside. Gingerly, he opened the sliding door and popped the sawn-off barrel of his weapon out of the door, hoping to dissuade a would-be assailant. Again, he was met with nothing. A few barstools, a wall-mounted food dispenser with several rotted snacks, and a magazine rack with several illegible magazines yellowed with age. Now, Marlowe was annoyed. Not two hours into his journey and paranoia was already setting in? Screw this world, honestly.

His internal rant was cut short by the sounds of avid, loud sniffing, and panting. Marlowe shook his head and double-took at a creature sitting outside at the gas pumps. It was a dog, unaltered by nuclear radiation like everything else Marlowe had come across. If the veteran had to guess, it was a German Shepard. He sighed again, and turned his weapon skyward, resting the barrel on his shoulder. He was not amused, to say the least; certainly relieved, though.

The dog itself seemed friendly enough when Marlowe cautiously greeted them. "Where's your owner, buddy?" he asked.

The dog whimpered in response and butted Marlowe's hand for a pet.

Without a second thought as to a potential owner or having to provide for the animal, Marlowe asked the friendly canine, "You wanna travel together, pal? You seem like a nice enough guy."

With a triumphant bark, the dog seemed to accept Marlowe's offer. He barked once more and then ran off, around the back of the Red Rocket.

"Well, that was short-lived," he muttered, sounding more disappointed than he expected. “I’m more of a cat person, anyway.”

The dog's absence was short-lived, though; the animal quickly returned with a large pipe wrench in his mouth, and dropped it at Marlowe's feet, sitting triumphantly with his find. "Oh, okay. You do that, huh?" He accepted the dog's gift, and stowed it in his messenger bag. "Come on, boy. We're going to Concord."

 

* * *

 

After the pair's departure from the Red Rocket, Marlowe investigated a familiar house at the base of the hill; Ruby's. He took some relief in the fact that any signs of her being her while the bombs fell were nonexistent, leading him to think she might have survived the initial blasts and survived for an undetermined amount of time. Apart from some preserved food, nothing of note was looted from the home. The dog found a green bandana he seemed to like. Marlowe tied it around his neck and scratched him behind his ears. There wasn't much time afterward to admire Concord's post-nuclear scenery. The sounds of gunfire being exchanged echoed from the main street. Marlowe drew his pistol and signaled for his canine companion to stay low. 

Marlowe stuck close to the wall of a dilapidated corner store and peered his head around to see the commotion: A group of raggedy-looking individuals located in the street were firing on a lone man on the balcony of the building at the other end of the road. If memory served Marlowe well, it was the museum of history, where the surrounding area commemorated the victories of the United States. Not being from around here, he never cared for the place. Back to the point, he had a decision to make, and one he did not take lightly: help the man on the balcony, or creep by unnoticed while the group was distracted?

Common moral decency took the metaphorical wheel. Using the combat experience gained from the army, Marlowe used the ensuing gunfight to his advantage to creep ahead. Ducking behind the frame of a pickup truck long abandoned, he counted to ten and held his breath. Reaching the end of the count, he flew up from his cover and lined the iron sights of his 10mm pistol down at the nearest gunman and opened fire. Three rounds left Marlowe's gun. The second shot missed, but the first and third landed, one through the man's shoulder, and the other through his head, with an exit wound evidently located where his left eye once was. The first gunman dropped, and Marlowe progressed forward.

The 10mm pistol carried twelve rounds of ammunition in the magazine when full. Marlowe had just expended three. With nine rounds left and not a lot of time to reload, he opted to make them count. His next target was a woman in a similar attire, wearing nothing but a harness and combat boots. Her hair was disheveled and she was missing an ear. Marlowe dropped with with a single round. He rushed to her position and picked up the crude, homemade rifle constructed from what looked like a few planks of wood and some copper tubing with a box magazine under the receiver. Deciding to use it was a mistake.

When Marlowe tried to fire at the next gunman, the gun jammed on the second pull of the trigger, and the only round that succeeded in firing missed and ricocheted off of a truck bed next to the man wearing a sack hood with tubing coming out of it and made an audible 'PING!' noise. 

"What the fuck?" The sack-hooded man turned as Marlowe swore himself and tossed the ill-kept weapon aside. "Hey, what the fuck-- We have a wildcard boys!" He shouted to the remaining pair of his crew. One kept the pressure on the man on the balcony but the other two moved in on Marlowe and opened fire.

Marlowe dived behind a wall of sandbags and drew his pistol again. A grenade landing at his feet forced him out of his cover and he leaped behind a mailbox as the resulting explosion threw shrapnel and rocks into the air. Marlowe took a risk and turned out of his cover and unloaded the rest of the 10mm pistol's magazine at the two assaulting his position. One dropped from four rounds penetrating his chest, while the second only took a grazing shot to his leg. Marlowe made the best of his enemy's staggering and sprinted at him, delivering a flying knee to the face. Marlowe tucked and rolled to a halt and spun around, using the few seconds of breathing room to reload his pistol. He'd just put a bullet into the gunman he'd kneed when he saw the dog rocket past, heading for the last assailant.

"Dog, hey!" Marlowe shouted after it and fell into pursuit. It was useless considering the dog could easily outrun Marlowe even on its off day.

The dog leaped at the last attacker; didn't even hesitate. Its powerful jaws clamped down hard on the attacker's shoulder, forcing him to the ground with the animal on top of him. The dog moved on from the shoulder to his throat, effectively ending the man's life with great malice. Marlowe stopped running and fell into a brisk speed walk, thoroughly impressed with his new companion.

"That's a good boy!" Marlowe commended, patting the dog's head. 

The man on the balcony interrupted the moment. "Hey, up here! On the balcony!"

Marlowe looked up from his dog and nervously waved back at the man. "Uhh, hi? You okay?"

The man on the balcony nodded affirmatively. "Yeah, you really had my back there! But it's not over yet. I've got a group of settlers inside-- there’s raiders inside, and they're almost on our position! Grab that laser musket and help us! Please!"

Marlowe didn't even hesitate to grab the customized laser rifle with a crank on the side. It lay next to a fallen defender dressed in a duster not dissimilar to the one the man in the balcony wore. He had an overwhelming urge to help those people; no innocents deserved to suffer in a land already so merciless. With two cranks of the handle, the weapon hummed to life in his hands. Marlowe cracked the door ajar just a hair to hear more gunfire being exchanged inside. He looked to his dog and nodded; both were ready.

It was time for round two.

 


	4. When Freedom Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Running low on ammunition and Raiders hot on their heels, Marlowe and his canine companion rally with newfound allies in hopes of forming an escape plan.

                                                             

 

* * *

 

"You know, I'll level with you. If you were tell me that this is what I would be doing to cope with the death of my wife and the kidnapping of my only child, I probably would have scoffed, or just like, walked away." 

Marlowe's canine companion, despite his attentiveness, was not the best conversational partner. He simply stared at his new owner. He sat in the threshold of a room adjacent to Marlowe's position behind a time-rotted pillar that supported the second floor walkway. In the span of under two minutes, he and Marlowe had entered the museum, then immediately took aim at and disintegrated the first raider spotted on the upper level. The invader dissolved into a pile of ash and their compatriot abandoned his previous target to avenge his fallen friend.

Marlowe, seemingly finished his commentary to his dog, cranked the laser musket twice, bringing the weapon to full power. He waited for a break in the action and turned out of his cover. A single, precise, and instantaneous laser blast struck his target in the arm, sending the raider off of the upper level and plummeting to the ground floor. A raider on the third floor took notice to the demise of his comrades on the level below. 

Marlowe disengaged, taking a tip from his dog and retreating into the threshold next to him. An old Bostonian-themed corridor populated by wooden barrels and gas lamp decorations directed him into a room with several weathered mannequins in tattered clothes, all discordantly shouting tacky jargon about the end of British occupation as he passed by. In turn, mannequins at the opposite end of the room sporting uniforms of British regulars demanded they return home. Marlowe scowled and rolled his eyes, bitterly weaving through the impersonated crowd to the next room.

The next room used to be a dramatic reenactment of an old sailing ship's deck, complete with crates of non-existent tea to throw overboard, if one were to guess. A ship's mast lay splintered and broken in the centre of the room. 

"Of all the places for someone to get held up in, honestly..." Marlowe sighed. He didn't particularly care for the American Revolution, and if he were being candid, found it boring as Hell. Although he was never one to shy away from a just protest-- in fact, it was the very reason is for his conscription into the military. But when it came to the Americans and their recounting of history, it was all so... Glorified. Theatrical. Overcompensating. Marlowe would go so far as to say neglectful.

"No taxation without representation!" barked an automated voice over the room's loudspeaker. How did anyone get through this?

"Oh go soak your head!" Marlowe retorted, visibly annoyed.

Much to the sole survivor's dismay did his habit of speaking to inanimate objects get him into trouble; as he left the ship deck display personally satisfied with his comeback, the raider he had thought dead after falling from the second story ambushed him from behind a broken display case. With tire iron in hand, the Raider delivered a quick and powerful swing to Marlowe's abdomen, forcing the latter to recoil from the sudden blow.

"I bet you thought you were real clever, shitface!" The raider berated, making contact with a downward swing at Marlowe's exposed upper back. "It's gonna take more than a cheap shot with a laser rifle to kill me you son of a bitch--"

Once again, the dog came to the rescue. Marlowe rolled over in time to watch the German shepherd snap his jaws down on the only remaining arm the Raider had left; the laser muskets charged shot bust have amputated his left arm. Marlowe staggered to his feet, his back and his stomach burning with the fresh pain. Carefully, he stepped around the dog and delivered a torturous blow to the raider's windpipe with the stock of his laser musket, followed by another assault to their head.

"Thanks for the save, pal," Marlowe commended, tussling the dog's fur. The sole survivor winced as he tried to stretch while he moved into the next part of the gauntlet that the museum insisted on presenting. The whine of a charged laser shot cracked to life on the third floor on the opposite end of the building. Originating from inside the room, the raider assaulting the door dropped anticlimactically, succumbing to the pain of the grazing shot. They writhed on the floor while another raider blind-fired over a breach in the door with a slapped-together pipe pistol.

Marlowe used the distraction to climb the stairs in the back half of the museum's main hall, skirting around a massive portion of the floor that had collapsed into the basement, consequentially revealing the building's main generator, locked in a fenced off room with a metal door. He hastily rummaged through his messenger bag and cursed himself for forgetting to grab the stray microfusion cells next to the corpse of the settler that lay just outside the main entrance. He settled for his sawn-off shotgun and shouldered the laser musket.

Opting for the first room available, Marlowe entered, quietly. With his shotgun trained on the room ahead, he crept tentatively, not wanting to be ambushed again. He heard two voices in the room ahead and quietly sighed. He dreaded combat in general, but close-quarters warfare with a particular passion, preferring to keep hostiles at bay with a rifle or in the safety of an armoured vehicle, rather than risk a grave error up close. He was suddenly very grateful for his previous position as a combat engineer in the army, having stayed within the confines of American fortifications more often than not.

Nevertheless, his reintroduction to conflict would inevitably continue. Marlowe made a shushing gesture at his dog and sidled up to the end of the blacked out hallway. He peeked out to get a look at his next challenge: two raiders, uncharacteristically idle given the current situation with the people upstairs. They made conversation over a patriotic hymn, amidst an exhibit commemorating the Anchorage campaign.

"I'm telling you, man," one raider spoke up, taking a drag of his cigarette, "Let's just get the Hell out of here. We got no reason to hang around here and get shot."

Marlowe raised an eyebrow, almost confused. It was a reasonable statement made by someone who he assumed wasn't opposed to frequent murder.

"I ain't goin' anywhere!" exclaimed the second Raider, who had their back to Marlowe. "We ain't got nowhere to go back to if we just fucking leave now, dumbass. You wanna be the one to tell Gristle that we left because ain't feelin' it today?"

"Ain't nobody say anything about telling Gristle a fucking thing though," the first Raider said in counterpoint, flicking the spent cigarette at the elaborate mural.

"You know he'd fuckin' find us anyway," the second grumbled.

Marlowe held his breath and rose up from behind a display case he'd migrated to during the conversation and expelled a single shell's payload from his weapon at the back of the nearest raider and watched them fall from the preemptive strike. They died instantly. The first Raider, the one to suggest the idea of leaving, yelped and froze as Marlowe trained his weapon on him.

"Heard your conversation. I'll give you a chance to leave peacefully," Marlowe bargained.

The Raider, enraged by their comrade's death, simply shouted, "FUCK YOU!" and made a move for a molotov dangling from his belt. There wouldn't be time for that, though; Marlowe fired the second shell from his weapon mid-movement, the pellets landing square in the chest. The raider recoiled, doing a full spin before landing face first, dying before they even hit the ground. The improvised incendiary weapon shattered on impact, and the Raider lay in a mess of blood and flammable liquid, likely kerosene or alcohol if he had to guess.

Marlowe grimaced. His attempted negotiation flopped. For a second, he thought about an alternate future where that raider had complied and left. The sole survivor concluded, though, that even if that encounter did go as hoped, that the raider would simply carry on and torture some other innocent in some other place. It was for the better, he felt. He shook his head, still throbbing from the beating the Raider from the first floor had dealt to him. In the moment of stillness, he couldn’t help but feel disgust at the excessive amount of killing he'd done in the few short hours since he departed Vault-111, feeling no better than he did in the campaign being commemorated on the wall to his left.

He glanced at each section of the mural, detailing an iconic conflict of American history through the ages. Marlowe wondered if he was supposed to feel any pride for these hardships, or if anyone else truly felt content with their hand in all of the violence. He read the plaque centred in front of the mural, detailing the dedication to those who fought for the freedom of the country. Not his, though. Marlowe zoned back in before delving into another brooding spell. The people who needed help were waiting, and still in trouble, just by the commotion.

A collapsed wall leading to a staircase to the third floor offered Marlowe another opportunity for another preemptive strike. As the last remaining raider threatened to skin the barricaded room's occupants alive, Marlowe crept up behind the man and used the grip of his shotgun to strike them in the back of the head. The Raider staggered forward and their head bounced off of the door's declining hardwood surface, falling to the ground. Marlowe attempted to execute the fallen raider, but the click of the weapon reminded Marlowe that he once again, forgot to reload. He swore, and delivered a quartet of fatal stomps to the final raider's neck and head. Another laser beam penetrated through the door, narrowly missing Marlowe. 

"Hold your fire! Hold your fire!" Marlowe yelled between heavy breaths. "It's me! The guy you asked for help."

There was an uncomfortable moment of silence, but the voice of the man from the balcony spoke. "Come in."

Marlowe cautiously opened the door, and entered slowly, as not to make any sudden movements. Entering the room, he came face to face with the grateful few; a man in overalls was knelt over a computer terminal, seemingly disinterested in his saviour. Marlowe tried not to take offence. The man from the balcony stood next to him, and Marlowe's expression was one of interest and curiosity. 

"Man, I don't know who you are, but your timing's impeccable." Said the man from the balcony. He was about Marlowe's height, with dark skin and brown eyes to compliment a dirty but determined face. In Marlowe's opinion, a very attractive man. He carried a laser musket like the one Marlowe had claimed, and wore a brown slouch hat with a tan duster that looked like he'd pulled it from one of the revolutionary war exhibits downstairs.

"Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minutemen," he continued, introducing himself. He smiled, looking relieved, but weary.

"Minutemen?" Marlowe said, confused. "So what, did I travel back in time now?" 

Preston huffed, slightly amused. "Yes and no. We're based on the idea of ‘protecting the people at a minute's notice,’ but we're more of a shadow of our former selves nowadays."

"A volunteer militia," Marlowe connected.

"Pretty much," Preston affirmed. "I joined up, hoping I'd make a difference, but things... fell apart." He frowned, and gestured to the only other survivors in the room, three of them, comprised of an elderly woman and a dishevelled couple.

"That bad, huh?" Marlowe remarked.

Preston nodded, and looked back at Marlowe. "A month ago, there were 20 of us. Yesterday there were 8. Now, we're 5."

Marlowe looked over to the couple and the elderly woman. "I'm sorry to hear." He said mournfully.

Preston nodded, grateful of Marlowe's sympathy. "First it was the Ghouls in Lexington. Now this mess."

"Is there anything more that I can do to help?" 

Another nod from the minuteman. "Actually, there is. Sturges, tell him."

The man in the overalls turned his attention away from the computer terminal and crossed his arms as he leaned on the desk. He snapped his fingers and pointed at the ceiling. "There's crashed vertibird up on the room, maybe you saw it coming in here?"

"Skipped my mind, sorry." Marlowe shrugged. "But go on."

"No harm done. Anyway," Sturges continued, "it's old-school. Pre-War military. I got a chance to scope it out before those jerks showed up, and as luck would have it, one of its passengers left a suit of military issue T-45 power armour up there. Pretty decent condition, too."

Marlowe whistled, impressed. "That's some serious protection." He was familiar with the T-45 armour, considering he’d once been in charge of maintaining several suits, equipment, and vehicles. "How come you didn't use it right away? You could have gotten out of here a lot sooner."

"That's the thing," Sturges said, his shoulders slumping in frustration. "There's a power core in the basement, but I barely had time to make it back here before those raiders made it in."

"Consider it done, then." Marlowe was just about to leave when Sturges raised his hand.

"When you you grab that fusion core, come back here and we'll plan a real offensive."

"Depend on it."

Preston stepped forward this time. "Thanks again, by the way. What's your name?"

"Marlowe. Marlowe Edwards."

"Well, pleased to meet you, Marlowe. We're grateful for your help, really. Once we're out of this, we'll talk about returning the favour."

Marlowe nodded, happy to have his first allies in this cruel new world. "Looking forward to it."

 


	5. Knight in Weathered Armour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sturges' plan comes to fruition, and Marlowe gets more than he bargained for during the counterattack. Can you believe it's still Day One?

                                                           

 

* * *

 

"Still nothing?"

Preston shook his head in response to Sturges's question. The self-proclaimed minuteman continued to peer out the window, looking for any signs of raider reinforcements. It'd only been a few minutes since Marlowe had left to grab the fusion core from downstairs. The newcomer had been integral in clearing out the raiders inside the museum, and thanks to that Preston was able to rest for the first time in the terrible month it'd been since the attack on Quincy. He’d have to find a way to repay Marlowe, if they ever got the chance.

"I still can't believe we're trusting that vault dweller to help us," remarked Marcy Long from her place across from Preston. She sat on a less-than-desirable-looking red sofa that was barely holding itself together. It had that in common with its only occupant, who in spite of her constant pessimism, was quite clearly afraid, and just as tired as everyone else. "I mean, what's he's gonna do? Bleed on the next batch of raiders that come pounding at the door?"

"Did we see the same guy, Marcy?" Sturges contended. "He tore through those bastards downstairs right quick, even without Preston's help."

"Yeah, well it should be you doing the work in the power armour." she grumbled, devoid of any reasonable argument against Marlowe. "How much you wanna bet he's gonna run off with it the first chance he gets? Leave us here to die."

Preston turned his head and gave Marcy a long look. She, unlike her husband Jun, had a lot to say on every matter as of late. Anger was her way of coping with the loss of her son, much like Jun's was to emotionally collapse. He couldn't fault either of them, though. It'd only been a month since the attack on their home, where their son died at the hands of the Gunners. In truth, Preston wasn’t much better off than them. But with Marlowe's sudden and fortunate entrance, his outlook practically did a one-eighty.

"Have a little faith, Marcy. We're almost out of this," Preston reassured.

"Well, forgive me for not trusting some random, very experienced killer out of the blue," she said bitterly.

"He's got a good heart," chimed in Mama Murphy. She'd been silent for most of the trip, only speaking to offer directions with her premonitions. The dog that came in with Marlowe had opted to stay behind and accompany the elderly seeress again. "I think... He's just the man to help us out of this. He'll lead us home."

 

* * *

 

"And... I'm in!"

Marlowe celebrated as the terminal gave an affirmative chime, signifying that he'd successfully hacked into the generator's systems. With an boastful series of key commands, the security door protecting the generator clicked and cracked open, now unlocked. At that moment he thought to himself that Nora would have been proud. Back when they were engaged and up until their last days together, she'd taught Marlowe everything he knew about hacking into terminals. She was just crafty like that; charismatic and tech-savvy. It was also her favourite way to deal with undesirable male coworkers.

Using a work glove he'd found on a raider, Marlowe crouched and firmly grasped the single fusion core. With an authoritative twist to the left and a careful pull, the core came free of the generator's vices and the machine whined to a stop. Marlowe felt the weight of the fusion core in his hands. It couldn't have been full, but to be fair it'd likely been down here since the bombs fell. If it was still powering the gaudy exhibits upstairs all this time, then it must have had some juice left in it. The sound of approaching thunder brought him back to the present again. He darted back upstairs with a newfound enthusiasm. Presenting the core to Sturges, he was eager to get a look at the power armour sitting in wait. 

"Any sign of the raiders?" Marlowe inquired.

Preston shook his head. "Not as far as I can tell. It'll probably take a while for them to realize their friends aren't coming back. I'd say that gives us an hour, maybe two."

Marlowe nodded absently, and checked his Pip-Boy for the time: one-thirty-two in the afternoon. "I guess I'll make the best of it, then," he said, somewhat anxious. "I haven't seen the power armour yet, and God only knows it needs to be calibrated."

"We'll buy you all the time you need, pal," Sturges promised. "But don't expect a whole lot of it."

"Every little bit counts. Thank you." Marlowe said, bending down to greet his dog. The canine companion sat next to the elderly woman, at attention, guarding her. He stroked his dog's fur, scratching just behind the ears. "You find a new friend, pal?"

"Oh, Dogmeat and I go way back," Mama Murphy informed. "Used to visit me plenty back when we lived in Quincy." She wearily sat in her chair, smiling fondly at the dog.

"Dogmeat?" Marlowe raised an eyebrow. It was an interesting name for a dog, a little morbid. "So is he yours?"

"No, no..." Mama Murphy dismissed, apologetically. "He ain't my dog, no sir. Dogmeat, he's what you'd call... His own man. Much like you, hero man." 

Marlowe let out an amused huff, flustered by the notion. Mama Murphy gave him a warm smile. "I'm only doing what's right, ma'am. You people were in trouble-- I can't just sit by and watch."

"Oh, don't sell yourself so short, kid. Comin' here, helpin' us... I'll admit, you're not what I expected Dogmeat to find up there, in that little neighbourhood. But believe me when I say that you're so much better. I saw it."

Marlowe looked around, awkwardly. "You... Saw it?" he asked. 

"Oh, look at me." Mama Murphy chuckled to herself. "You'd probably think I'm outta my mind; Just an old lady hopped up on chems. They give ole' Mama Murphy the Sight."

Marlowe harboured reasonable suspicion, but his fascination with the arcane and fantasy worlds as a child ensured his mind remained propped open to the possibilities. "I don't think it's crazy, ma'am," he assured. "Tell me what you saw. How does it work?"

"You really wanna know?" Now it was Mama Murphy who was skeptical. Marlowe nodded expectantly.

"Well, okay." She sat upright, and stopped petting Dogmeat. In a very mystic tone, she began. "I can see a little bit of everything with The Sight. What was, what's to come... even what's going on, right now. I also see you. Awoken in the dark... cold, in agony... You lost something-- no-- someone...  Your road, your path... it's a winding one, kid. But you're just what the Commonwealth needs."

Marlowe nodded along, legitimately and visibly impressed. "That's incredible..."

Mama Murphy suddenly raised a finger, demanding silence. She winced as she continued to recite her visions. "I also see... Oh, it's horrible, kid."

"Tell me what you know." Marlowe didn't miss a beat. He hung onto her every word.

She shook her head. "Claws... teeth... horns... The very face of death itself."

"So something big is coming, then," Marlowe concluded. "Is there anything else you can tell me?"

Mama Murphy shook her head again, suddenly wearing from the expenditure of mental energy. "I'm sorry, kid, but I just don't know." She seemed sad at her inability to help more. "The Sight ain't always clear, see? But believe me when I tell you... It ain't a raider."

Marlowe froze. What else out there could be worse than uncivilized murderers and giant cockroaches? He shuddered at the thought, and caught himself breathing more heavily. He was nervous, now. In spite of that, Mama Murphy put a calming hand on his shoulder.

"If I ain't mistaken, you've got a job to do, hero," she said with a smile. "I'm tired now anyway."

"Thank you, ma'am." Marlowe said as he stood.

"Ah, you're killin' me with the pleasantries, hun. Just call me Mama Murphy."

They both laughed. With a quick goodbye, Marlowe took the fusion core and made his way to the roof. He felt a bond with these people now, and wanted nothing more than to keep them safe. Whatever would happen next, Marlowe would make sure their lives went on.

 

* * *

 

'' _ Personal log. United States Army Staff Sergeant Michael Daly. This past Saturday, October 23rd while en route to West Stockbridge, our vertibird crashed into the roof of this museum. The cause: EMP following nuclear detonation. Several, in fact. From the intel I've gathered, this was a global event. The co-pilot was killed on impact. Pilot died of his injuries a day later. Day after that, Flaherty and Kanawa were shot by some scared, desperate, survivors. Then Proznanski took off running. Haven't seen him since. Now it's my turn to go AWOL, if that concept even applies anymore. My armor's fusion core is burned out, so I guess my soldiering days are done. I'm heading to Boston, on foot, to see if my sister survived all this. She's got an apartment on Boylston Street. This is Mike Daly, signing out. Good luck. And God bless America. Or what's left of it. _ ''

 

It was Marlowe's third time listening to the holotape recording that'd been left alongside the derelict set of T -45 power armour on the roof of the museum. Shrouded by the carcass of a vertibird VTOL craft, the armour had presumably been abandoned by the AWOL sergeant. So as Marlowe worked away at restoring the armour's functionality, he listened to the recording a fourth time. He wondered what became of Michael Daly, who while Marlowe and his family were being ushered into cryogenic freezing pods, had to deal with the horror of watching the world crumble around him. Marlowe desperately wanted to believe that Daly and his sister were reunited, both alive and well.

But that was just another thing he'd never know. Just like he'd never know who actually started the apocalypse, or what happened to his real home. Acceptance of the absence of evidence was definitely going to be a task for him. He looked at the expended fusion core sitting on the desk he worked at. Thanks to Daly and his crew, plenty of maintenance tools were left behind, most likely trying to salvage and repair what they could before everything around them had failed completely. Marlowe counted his blessings that he woke to a world long dead, thankful he didn't have to watch it die.

As light rainfall spat on his temporary workstation through the holes in the ceiling, Marlowe set down the T-45's helmet, finally satisfied with his work. Back in the war, he’d taken to the task of maintaining power armour with an abrasive, but intrigued eye. Though he seldom field-tested anything he'd worked on, the mortality rates of fellow soldiers he'd assisted were impressive for the standards that Anchorage ultimately set. His concentration broke when he heard the shattering of glass from the floors below, followed by the sounds of exchanged gunfire. 

"Fuck," Marlowe cursed, and tossed his messenger bag aside. It'd be too big to fit comfortably in the armour with him. With a gloved hand he picked up the "fresh" fusion core he'd obtained from the museum's generator and made for the aged suit of armour and inserted the core into the handwheel on the armour's lower back. A simple yet strained crank to the left prompted the suit to hatch open, revealing the inner workings of the power armour frame. Marlowe took a deep breath, and stepped inside.

Though he had plenty of experience servicing them, Marlowe had never actually used a suit of power armour for himself. He held his breath and nervously waited as each fold of abandoned armour enclosed itself around him. To Marlowe's surprise, it was tight. Not in a way of suffocating, but more snug, than he imagined. The gunfire in the street below persisted, and the whine of Preston's laser musket pierced the air. Marlowe was working as fast as he could, trying to wake articulation points from a tired tenure of disuse. It was still rusty, and would take a moment to register that a new fusion core had been inserted. Marlowe strained for the helmet he'd left on the desk. He took a lingering gaze at the helmet's innards before putting it on, like a nervous chef adding the last garnish to a proud dish.

"Come on, come on..." Marlowe pleaded with the suit's wake-up routine, desperate to get out there and protect his newfound allies. The helmet's heads up display flickered to life in an amber glow against his pale face and grey eyes. Emerging from obscurity came a directional compass, fuel level, armour status (an arm and a leg were already in the red, in need of repair.), and Geiger counter, among others. The armour was awake again. Groggy, but functioning optimally nonetheless. "Now that's more like it."

Marlowe's next goal was to get down to the street. He could go back inside and kick open the main doors, sure, but it would be a poor move that might cost him the safety of his friends inside. No, a more... theatrical approach was in order. Marlowe hurried to the minigun dangling from the side of the Vertibird, and tore it from the axis. What happened next... would shock those below.

 

* * *

 

**ONE HOUR EARLIER...**

 

Gristle was by no measure an honourable man, not by any measure of the word. But today, something came over him as he smoked his dirt-stricken cigarette, feet up in a tattered patio chair. Unfortunately to those he'd plundered and ravaged in the past, it wasn't a change in his moral compass. It was a change in his tactics. Satisfied with his new take on leadership, the raider equivalent of a retail supervisor waited for any news to come of his micromanaging.

"You know, if it weren't for the fact that Jared might actually find me and tear out my insides and make me eat 'em... I'd settle down in a place like this," he mused to himself between drags of his cigarette. The top lieutenant of Jared's crew sported a mohawk dyed white, and his face was covered in who knew how many weeks’ worth of dirt. He sat alone. The price to pay when you sent most of your men to divide and conquer. He took in the fumes of his cigarette one more time before putting out the rest of it on his ramshackle fusion of discarded steel plating, tubing, and chain-link fence, and pulled himself out of the chair, taking notice of the bickering echoing from the main area of the cabin.

He stormed into what could be considered the official living space, where a handful of raiders were huddled in a circle, gambling their caps to one another. "What the fuck is this?" Gristle bellowed, putting his foot through the gaming space and summarily ruining everyone's cards. Some protested, prompting Gristle to kick one of his Raiders in the side. "I leave for five fuckin' minutes and you're in here fucking around? Where's Wolfgang?"

"You sent him to that diner just east of here, Gris," said the Raider he'd kicked. "He ain't bin' back for a couple o' hours now."

"Fucking Christ..." Gristle scowled. "And Rhona?"

"They... Should have been back by now," answered another Raider who'd just finished collecting her caps. "Didn't think they'd have that much trouble with that minuteman or getting that old bitch that Jared wants so badly, but they ain't come back since you sent them out this mornin'."

Gristle rubbed his face, smearing grime over his complexion. The diner extortion was just a side gig, the main objective being the old seeress from Quincy. If they failed in collecting her, or worse, killed her, then Jared would probably cut Gristle's fingers off and make him him eat them. Without a word, he gathered his remaining crew and disregarded Wolfgang. Thunder rumbled in the sky. They set out for Concord.

 

* * *

The raider lieutenant now stood atop a red pickup truck in the rain, standing on the corpse of the vehicle as if he were a Revolutionary War general commanding his troops. Needless to say, he was pissed after coming across the ventilated bodies of his men who'd been sent to collect the old seeress. He could only imagine what fate befell the rest of them who'd made it inside the museum. Gristle didn't particularly care about those under his command, but he did care about himself. Assuming they couldn't do what they were sent to do, his fate would be much, much worse. Luckily for him, when he spotted the minigun from the vertibird wreck on the roof come free by a shadowy mass, Jared's cruelty wouldn’t be a problem in his foreseeable future.

 

Marlowe hopped from the bay of the vertibird like one would to perform a pencil dive from a diving board. With his free hand, he quickly jammed it into the side of the building, using the drag to soften the fall; while the power armour was virtually immune to any sort of damage from falling thanks to military-grade shock absorbing parts in the legs, its occupants certainly weren't. It was something that soldiers he'd serviced during the Anchorage campaign had said to him: _"It's not the fall that'll kill you, but the sudden stop at the bottom."_

A successful dismount from the threshold between the first and second floor resounded in the form of a ground-shaking vibration for any in the immediate vicinity of Marlowe's now armoured form. Raiders watched as the rusted orange hulk righted itself in the dust cloud and the headlamp beamed to life in the smog and the rain. Immediately following was a hail of 5mm rounds escaping at terminal velocity through the thickness of the dust, and slowly, Marlowe progressed ahead. Two raiders were cut down almost immediately, their remains no easier to tell apart than the rest of the bodies of their own that'd fallen before. The truck nearest to the museum went up in an explosive ball of fire.

"I don't see any claws!" Marlowe cried over the chorus of his heavy weapons as the rain picked up. "No teeth!"

Gristle, who'd stopped sticking out like a sore thumb to take cover behind the truck he'd been standing on, peered up from his place to watch the chaos. "Oh, I'll give you teeth you fucking shit," he cracked.

Using his own automatic weapon, a combat rifle with some minor modifications, Gristle disembarked from his cover and opened fire on Marlowe. Marlowe, in turn, quit firing and instinctively shielded his face with a protected arm. He progressed forward, minigun idle, but in hand, pointed at Gristle. A warning sound from the armour's operating system warned its vault-suited occupant of the weakened integrity of his left arm, now matching the red status of the right arm. Marlowe swore, but had his endurance rewarded by the sound of Gristle cursing as he scrambled to switch magazines.

Marlowe used this opportunity to grab Gristle by his chest plate, and raised him off of his feet. His intention to slam the raider into the pavement was cut short as his impending kill shouted a command, and three more raiders rose from their cover in the building to their right and let out a barrage of small arms fire. Marlowe groaned and threw Gristle toward the end of the street and let loose again with his minigun.

Gristle, on the other hand, ragdolled across the ill-kept cement until he came to a stop on his stomach, just in front of a manhole. He couldn't move; the pain in his body kept a paralyzing hold on his nervous system. The ground he laid on shook, but went unnoticed as he watched Marlowe cut down the last of his raiders. He heard their screams, their cries of pain, but it wouldn't measure to his own impending fate.

"Like I said!" Marlowe shouted, his voice booming from the armour's on-board speakers. "No claws! No teeth..."

The raider lieutenant heard the grate behind him groan and snap open, followed by the guttural growling of... something he didn't want to think about, and wouldn't need to in just a moment. A new pain shot through him, as he was simultaneously crushed and impaled. Gristle's last moments of consciousness were the sounds of his bones being snapped and crushed, and watching the bastard in the power armour nervously look over to his reaper.

A deathclaw.

"...No horns..."

Without question, it'd put even the most campy, most terrifying silver-screening monster of the week to shame. With beastly claws at the end of humanoid arms and a hunched reptilian form with large, razor-sharp horns on its head, Marlowe was more actively afraid than he was before. Its maw snapped open and shut at the sight of him, a proud new harbinger of Marlowe's nightmares. It let out an ear-rupturing roar as it presented itself as a challenge, livid that it'd been awoken from its slumber beneath the streets of Concord.

"Son of a bitch," Marlowe let out a tight sigh. The sole survivor began to back pedal slowly while he unloaded the rest of the minigun's ammunition at the beast which easily stood ten feet as it rushed at him. It started on all fours, but raised its hind legs as it delivered a devastating backhand, sending Marlowe, power armor and all, into the red truck Gristle had used as cover. All sorts of warning sounds went off within the armour now, most notable the greyed out chest piece on the armour's status indicator.

'All gone. Integrity gone.' Marlowe groaned. Wheezing from a blow which winded him, he struggled to sit up, listening to the sound of sundered plating grind against sundered plating. He acted quickly though, rolling out of the way of the deathclaw's punishing headbutt. It tried to pull away, only to discover it'd gotten itself stuck in the truck's cabin. 

Marlowe used the opportunity to act, and lumbered toward his minigun. When the deathclaw came free, he used the barrel of the weapon as a blunt instrument in which he swiped across the beast's face. The large, aggressive creature staggered in place, dazed from the blunt force of the swing. It recovered quickly though, in time to catch Marlowe in the act of trying to rip a road sign from the foundation. More angry than ever, it rushed Marlowe once more, head-first.

Marlowe was lucky enough that its horns only shredded parts of the armour where his body wasn't, and delivered a series of mechanically augmented punches to the deathclaw's collarbone and rib cage. It was enough to dissuade the reptilian predator, and Marlowe let loose with a parting upper cut before he tried the yield sign again. The deathclaw fell to the ground reeling.

The nightmarish beast howled again with its deafening battle cry, disrupting the fresh puddles pooling in the potholes around them, and rose to its feet just as Marlowe managed to free the sign from its earthly hold. It ran at the winded Marlowe with its full might, intent on a finishing blow. Marlowe braced himself and swung with the earth-encased end of the yield sign. Concrete and dirt shattered against the deathclaw's face and dazed the creature again, breaking a few teeth. Before it could react accordingly, Marlowe thrust the pole end of the sign into the beast's chest, and by sheer luck impaled its heart. 

The creature moaned and weakly grasped at the impromptu Excalibur in its chest. It roared one more time as it fell to its knees, its thick leathery hide made slick from the rainfall. Under the beating of the rain, it sunk limp to the ground. Marlowe took his own turn to fall to the ground, tiredly sitting, panting, and took off his helmet. He tossed the bucket aside and exhaled heavily. His day in the ruins of the old world had been so goddamn weird.

"That might as well have happened."


	6. Sanctuary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take a load off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking around! We're officially out of the prologue, and ready for the rest of the story. It'll be a while before the next arc as Destiny 2 is bringing out a new DLC I'll surely need to play the crap out of, as well as that I'll be adding some edits made by a dear friend of mine for easier and more enjoyable reading. 
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much! This means a lot to me that something I didn't think would get anymore than 20 hits now has 31 and 4 kudos! It's great! 
> 
> Thank you again! Until next time!

                                                             

 

* * *

 

 

"I'm fine, Preston. Quit fussin'."

The survivors of Quincy sat together in the lobby of the museum. With the rain and clouds doing zero favours, they were illuminated only by the lantern sitting on the floor, huddled together with their belongings stacked around them. It wasn't much by any measure of the word; the Gunners didn't exactly allow the original twenty survivors to take their time as they departed from the organized onslaught of infighting and strategic assault. As the numbers of the survivors dwindled, so too did the amount of supplies the remaining Quincy residents could carry. At this point, everyone save Mama Murphy carried a large bag, filled with scraps of food and first aid supplies. It wasn't much, sure, but with their goal hopefully within reach, supplies wouldn't be an issue for much longer.

Mama Murphy once again shrugged off Preston's concerns, somewhat embarrassed by the amount of attention she'd been getting from the remaining Minuteman. It was at this point that Marlowe pushed open the old wooden doors of the museum's main entrance, and limped inside. He wasn't particularly injured; Winded, maybe, but otherwise just fine. With a ravaging tear in the torso plating of his armour and the assorted damage throughout, Marlowe had certainly put the power armour to the test. Everyone gasped in awe at the sight of him, having seen or heard from Preston the action that had ensued outside not ten minutes ago.

"Hey," the sole survivor greeted sheepishly, still doused in rainwater. The T-45 armour's helmet dangled in his hand.

Preston shook his head, amused, amazed. "That was... Pretty amazing! I'm glad you're on our side."

Marlowe rolled his eyes embarrassed, but smiling from the admiration. "The feeling's mutual. You guys going to be okay now?"

Preston shrugged, genuinely unsure. He fidgeted with the underside of his laser musket. "I'd like to say yes, but who knows what the rest of the day is going to bring, let alone tomorrow?" He looked worriedly at the other four. Marcy, Jun, Sturges, and Mama Murphy all waited in anticipation for the next part of his plan, next idea, next words. It was a heavy burden to bear. He looked back at Marlowe. "For the longest time, Mama Murphy's had a vision  of some abandoned neighbourhood up in these parts; a ‘sanctuary’, if you would."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Preston, hey!" Marcy interrupted. "This guy just rolls onto the scene and you tell him our plans just like that?"

"Marcy, come on now," Sturges groaned.

Preston defensively raised a hand. "Listen, he just saved our lives. If he wanted to kill us by now, he would have."

"He's certainly got the means to do it now, too," Sturges added.

"I mean no harm, really," Marlowe insisted, putting a mechanical hand to his chest. "In fact I know the neighbourhood she's talking about! It's my... was, my home. It can be yours, too."

Once again did Preston look genuinely impressed. "Well that's reassuring then. See, Marcy?" he turned to face the apprehensive settler, gesturing at Marlowe. "You can never have too many friends. Not in the Commonwealth."

"Commonwealth?" Marlowe asked in a barely audible tone. Technically, they were in Massachusetts, but the Commonwealth was a more archaic term for the region. It led Marlowe to wonder just how many people had reverted back to older terminologies and traditions. It'd certainly explain Preston's proclamation of being a Minuteman. There was going to be a lot to get used to, he figured.

Mama Murphy was the first person to bring him out of his trance-like thinking. "Before we go... Can I have a word with ya, kid?" she asked, beckoning Marlowe to come to her level. Marlowe politely complied, and the rest of the group gave them their space and gathered their things, moving closer to the door. Only Dogmeat stayed with the pair. Mama Murphy took a moment to stare into Marlowe's expectant eyes before closing hers and nodding, having mentally come to some conclusion. "Mhmm. It's as I thought. You're a man out of time, kid. Out of hope..."

She cupped Marlowe's face in her hands as she spoke. "But all's not lost. I can feel... your son's energy." She'd been gazing just above him while she used her Sight, but for this last sentence, she looked the sole survivor dead in the eyes. "He's alive."

Marlowe gasped. He kneeled more upright, taking himself away from Mama Murphy's hands. "Is there anything more you can tell me? Please! Where is my son?"

The elderly seeress shook her head and shrugged, apologetically. "I told ya, kid. The Sight works on its own terms. But trust me when I say that there's more to you, hero man. More to your destiny. I know your pain, and you know I've seen it."

He sighed, though not in defeat. "Thank you, Mama Murphy. I appreciate your sentiment." He stood back on his feet, the armour joints creaking from the stress of his previous encounter. He extended a hand to the old woman. "When you're ready."

"Such a gentleman," Mama Murphy laughed, graciously taking his hand. He helped her walk to Preston, who took over and exchanged Marlowe's bag and laser musket for the senior citizen.

"I'm ready when you guys are," Marlowe announced.

Preston and Sturges nodded. Both of them smiled warmly, revitalized by a new hope. Satisfied and assured, the six of them opened the doors to the library and left the museum, and Concord, behind.

 

* * *

 

Much like any stable society, the group moved only as fast as their slowest person. Preston held Mama Murphy's hand, and helped her through the main street of Concord and up the hill to the Red Rocket where Marlowe had encountered Dogmeat. Upon passing, Sturges jokingly remarked on using the derelict service station as a vacation home. The rain had begun to let up as well, becoming no more than what one would refer to as "spitting out". Occasionally, the mid-afternoon sun appeared through a break in the clouds, and the humid heat of post-apocalyptic Massachusetts let off to make the trek almost pleasant. Preston inadvertently stopped the group in front of a statue that stood proudly to the right of the foot bridge into Sanctuary.

"Well I'll be damned," he muttered in awe. He took his laser musket into his off-hand and removed his slouch hat with the other, holding it over his chest. "It's the monument to the original Minutemen."

Marlowe joined Preston in his viewing and looked over to his new friend. A proud smile beamed across his face as he stared at the monument of the country's most important revolution. Marlowe cracked a small smile as well, pleased to see his excitement.

"I knew it was somewhere around Concord, but... Damn. Never thought I'd actually see it." With a slight shake of his head he expressed relief at his previous doubts, then turned to look at the foot bridge. "Then that must mean... That this is the old North Bridge. Guys, this is where the first shots of the American Revolution were fired!"

Sturges chuckled as he walked past Preston, patting him on the shoulder on the way by, offering the Minuteman a moment of validation. "I don't know what you're talking about, boss, but I'm glad you're happy about it. We're gonna go get set up. Take all the time you need."

Marlowe nodded on Preston's behalf. "There's a Mister Handy there ready to be of service-- His name's Codsworth! Be nice to him?"

The mechanic gave a casual salute as confirmation and helped Mama Murphy along. Soon, they'd made it over the foot bridge. Marlowe watched them until they were out of sight, and turned his attention back to Preston, who was still staring at the monument. He extended a hand forward and opened his armoured palm as rain pattered against it. Aside from the light rainfall and Dogmeat yawning at Marlowe's feet, it was silent. Preston eventually broke the silence.

"Listen," he began, putting his hat back on and turning to Marlowe. "When we first met... You asked about the Minutemen, and got us right. Mostly. One thing you should know about us, we help out our friends. So here." He handed the sole survivor a small pouch that jingled when it made contact with the latter’s hand. "Thank you, Marlowe. For everything you've done."

Marlowe opened the pouch and examined the contents: Nuka-Cola bottle caps. He back at Preston, confused. "It's my pleasure, really. I'm happy to help, but..." He motioned the bottle caps in his hand.

"What? It's money."

"I’m sorry-- Money?" Marlowe asked, increasingly bewildered. "What about, like... dollar bills?"

Preston scratched his head. "It's the currency of the wasteland, man. I don't... You really aren't from around here, are you?"

Marlowe sighed. "Well... Yes and no?" he said indecisively, shoving the bottle caps into his bag. "Look, you're probably not going to believe me if I tell you. Like, I wouldn't blame you for not, and would understand even if you laughed a little."

Preston set his laser musket aside and crossed his arms inquisitively. "Try me."

"Okay..." Marlowe exhaled, trying to find the right words. He was unsure of how to explain it, or even if he should. Was it worth telling, even if it wasn't worth the concept of secrecy? He decided to come right out and say it, laying it all out in front of Preston. "I'm... From the past."

"No kidding?"

"I wish? I... Lived here, two-hundred years ago. This was my home, and..." he sighed. "I watched the bombs fall, and my family and I were put into the vault that's just up the hill." He pointed at the general direction where Vault-111 would be. "We were frozen in pods, and told it was a decontamination process before going deeper inside. The bastards lied to us, and while we slept everything must have deteriorated and gone to Hell because when I woke up, I... Everyone was dead. That place is a tomb."

Preston would never be able to comprehend the literal meaning of Marlowe's description of the Vault being a tomb. But, taking everything else to heart... Preston believed him. "And your family?"

"Dead. Kidnapped." Marlowe responded flatly. "I was woken up twice. Once, when I witnessed these bastards in hazmat suits and one with a gun kidnap my son and murder my wife in cold blood; and a second time when I woke up just this morning. This day's been Hell."

"I'm... So sorry, Marlowe," Preston consoled, standing on his toes to put a hand on Marlowe's shoulder. "I can't imagine what you're going through. I've only just met you, but you're already the bravest person I think I'll ever know. I don't know what I would have done."

Marlowe was silent for a beat, taking in another wave of anguish from the loss of Nora. "Thanks, Preston," he said, nodding graciously. "I think you'd do the same thing as me, for what it's worth. Now, tell me about how caps work."

Preston laughed, and grabbed his laser musket. Together, the two walked into Sanctuary, side by side, as Preston explained the currency of the wasteland. They spent the rest of the afternoon helping everyone get settled into the home across from Marlowe's, the previous residence of the Rosa family. By the evening's arrival, everyone settled into the living room and, with Codsworth's help, prepared a meal worthy of celebration. Everyone swapped stories, and Marlowe divulged his Pre-War origins to the rest of the group, while they in turn answered his questions about the wasteland as best as they could. They spent the early evening in good company, rife with laughter and joy.

As the full moon rose high into the Saturday night, everyone aside from Marlowe drifted off to sleep. Unable to find sleep just yet, he returned to his own home. Having obviously seen better days, the house was well-kept just as much as it was ruined, the former thanks to Codsworth, who'd worked diligently to maintain a semblance of order in the absence of his human counterparts. Marlowe immediately spotted the couch to his right, once pristine and crimson, now without two of its legs on one side and faded from days gone by. He meandered down the hallway to the left of the entrance, eventually finding himself in Shaun's nursery room. He choked up, holding back forlorn tears as he leaned over the faded blue crib.

"I'm coming, buddy," he mumbled as he looked at the tattered mobile which hung over the crib. He sat in the corner which resided in the corner and held his head in his hands, sobbing quietly for several minutes.

"Mister Marlowe," Codsworth called quietly. He was hovering in the threshold. Marlowe didn't even hear him approach. The Mister Handy blinked with all three eyes and entered into the room with grace. "Nobody I have ever known shares your amount of kindness," he offered. "From the day you assembled me to the day you and your family began your tenure in Vault-111, I have hung on to the memory of your humanity. Believe me when I say that I don't think that anyone else would tell their robot butler to ‘stay safe’ and wish them well before leaving into the unknown."

"I wish I could have taken you with us, Codsworth," Marlowe lamented, wiping tears from his eyes.

"Oh, come on now!" Codsworth chimed, amused. "Then who would tend to the estate, hmm? Surely not those barbaric raiders you heroically slayed in Concord, no sir. I have no misgivings about my solitude here in Sanctuary."

Marlowe sniffled. "Thanks, Codsworth."

The obscurely built automaton seemed to bow graciously, then produced a holotape from a compartment on his body. "I believe miss Nora intended to give this to you, one day. She entrusted it to me, but before I could deliver it, the world well... Fell apart." He set the storage device into Marlowe's hands with one of his robotic tendrils, assuring that it would be compatible with Marlowe's Pip-Boy. "Very well, then!" he said, moving for the hallway. "I best be off to keep watch! I volunteered to take the night watch for mister Garvey."

"Thank you, Codsworth," Marlowe said quietly.

"Have a pleasant evening, mister Marlowe. Do try to get some sleep; I've prepared the couch for you."

Marlowe nodded, and watched his robot servant leave with the same grace as he'd arrived. He waited several moments, inspecting the holotape several times before eventually ejecting sergeant Daly's holotape and exchanging it for Nora's. He gingerly shut the lid, and listened to the Pip-Boy's internal workings load the tape. He hesitated, but tentatively pressed play.

The recording began with the sound of feedback. Nora's pre-recorded voice crackled to life. Marlowe broke into tears again. " _Oopsie. Ha ha ha. No, no, no. Little fingers away, little guy!_ " Nora playfully fought with Shaun, who must have insisted on playing with the recorder. " _There we go! Just say it-- Right there. Right there!_ " she laughed, trying to urge Shaun to speak. As his baby giggled, Marlowe broke into quiet laughter amidst his tears. Nora celebrated and congratulated their newborn child.

" _Hi honey! Listen... I don't think Shaun and I need to tell you how great of a father you are... but we're going to anyway. You are kind, and loving..._ " Shaun laughed this time. " _...and funny! That's right... And patient... So,_ **_so_ ** _patient... Patience of a saint, my mom used to say. I love you, Marlowe. So much._

" _With Shaun, and us all being at home together... It's been an amazing almost-year. But even so, I know our best days are yet to come. There'll be changes, sure. Things we'll need to adjust to. You'll rejoin the civilian workforce, I'll shake the dust off my law degree..._

" _But everything we do, no matter how hard... we do it for our family._ " She’d repeated those words often: when things seemed rough, when he had doubts, always when he needed it most.

A lifetime away from him, and still she knew what to say and when to say it.

" _Now, say goodbye, Shaun... Bye bye? Say bye bye?_ " Their baby giggled and murmured, making his best attempt. " _Bye honey! We love you!_ "

With that, the remaining silence returned him to the present, centuries later. For a long moment he sat quietly in the darkness, brushing his thumb over his empty hand. Quietly, he opened the drawer of the end table by his chair and found his lighter and cigarettes. Just where he'd left them 200 years ago. After a brief examination, he found they were still good.  
  
He lit up and laid back. Truth be told, it was his first one in a little over two and a half centuries, if one disregarded the lapse of time in cryostasis. He remembered swearing off of them after the doctor confirmed Nora's pregnancy, but couldn't bear to part from them completely.   
  
Marlowe sat in the chair for a while longer before shuffling back to the couch. The night was cold, but the rain had passed, and the moon took center-stage framed by the hole in the roof, in a sky populated by millions of twinkling stars in harmonious sequence.

He sat on the couch and removed his Pip-Boy. Using the commands that Sturges had taught him, Marlowe found the radio function and tuned into a local radio station. Its DJ was awkward, and paranoid, going so far as to have a meltdown as he expressed distress on a piece of recent news. Nonetheless, the Ink Spots played just the way Marlowe remembered while he set the device on the coffee table and lit a cigarette. He laid down and took a drag, watching the stars blink and listening to the wind as _“Maybe”_ played. He missed Nora. He missed his old life. In spite of his desires, fate had decided to play a heartless bitch and release him unto the world without his spouse.

If Nora hadn't died, the two could have taken this cold, unforgiving wasteland by storm. They could have found Shaun while carrying on with the support of one another.

But that wasn't how the world was, Marlowe accepted it now.

As he listened to the familiar song and stared at the stars while he lay on the couch covered in a tattered comforter, mourning his wife, he pondered his new, unexpected place in the universe. It slowly grew into acceptance. He would find Shaun. He'd bring home what was left of his family.

Life from now on was going to be a war of survival.

And as Marlowe knew all too well...

War. War never changes.

 


	7. The First Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the discord of yesterday, Marlowe is ready for the Commonwealth. Preston deploys the Sole Survivor to Tenpine's Bluff to answer a distress call, but worries that it may be too late.

                                                       

 

* * *

 

 

If you've ever camped out during the summer while during a period of not-ideal weather, then you're very accustomed to Marlowe's displeasure of waking up damp from the morning's condensation. He opened his eyes to a grey sky and the sound of a can loudly clattering down the street outside, followed by a wave of dead and discarded leaves wading over the desolate concrete. He was cold, if only in his hands and face. For the most part, his vault suit had kept parts of his body warm wherever the yellow lining was located. Codsworth's comforter surprisingly did most of the work, though. On the upside, Dogmeat seemed to have joined him at some point in the night, the canine now laying at his feet.

The sole survivor of Vault-111 sat upright on the dilapidated couch and wiped the morning dew from his face, staring at his out of place reflection in the television across from him. He picked up the Pip-Boy he'd set on the table the previous night and thumbed through the tabs of the handheld device, finally finding the radio feature and shutting it off before the DJ who hadn't slept had another panic attack. Marlowe wiped sleep from his eyes as he messed with more functions, changing the atomic green HUD to a white one, among others.

Once satisfied with the settings, he got up from the couch and waded through the fog to the house on the other side of the street, lazily putting the Pip-Boy back on as he crossed. Codsworth's jet engine could be heard in the distance, though Marlowe couldn't pin down the exact location. He stepped onto the porch and poked his head inside as Dogmeat quietly joined him. Mama Murphy, Sturges, Marcy, and Jun all slept soundly still, though they very much earned their rest. Preston was absent, however.

Marlowe stepped onto the Rosa house's front lawn, wondering where the last Minuteman could even be. He focused, scanning the entire street until he saw the vague shape of a person heading for the bridge. As he ventured closer, the shape revealed itself to be Preston, who seemed more agitated and hurried than usual. He stopped at the footbridge, letting Marlowe draw closer, and began packing a burlap rucksack with food and ammunition for his musket. He stopped when he noticed Marlowe, the latter of which involuntarily winced after being spotted. 

"Oh, hey, you're here!" Preston greeted, smiling fondly, albeit forced. "Listen, I have a favour to ask..."

"What's that?" Marlowe asked, inquisitively raising an eyebrow. Preston didn't answer immediately. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, I..." He sighed. "I just... I have to go. I'll be back for sunset though."

"The Hell for?" Marlowe crossed his arms, genuinely confused. Preston came off as an honourable man, and he in fact was. Being the most capable of the five survivors from Quincy, he could have very much cut his losses and ditched the settlers at any time. In spite of this, Marlowe's trust in him was in danger of waning with the ingenuine tone of voiced used when he said he'd be home. "You're not planning on leaving them, are you?"

"God, Marlowe!" Preston answered, visibly insulted. "No, I... I got a job to do."

"And that is?" Marlowe crouched down beside his new friend, fingers steepled. He side-eyed the Minuteman with an air of suspicion, head faced in the direction of the Red Rocket's sign, ominously shrouded by the morning fog.

"Shortly before you found us at the museum, we stopped off in Bunker Hill, hoping to find a place to live." Preston shook his head. "They didn't have any room, and we could just stay in the hotel, not with the Gunners on our tail. But while we were there this guy with a pompadour and slick shades pulls me aside, tells me that some settlers up north asked for help." He looked Marlowe in the eyes. "The _Minutemen's_ help."

Marlowe took a long nod, realization dawning. "So you're going to answer the distress call."

"Yes."

"But I thought the Minutemen were wiped out? Why would they ask for help from you guys?" Marlowe asked, stroking Dogmeat's dampened coat.

Preston shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe the news hasn't spread up here just yet, or... Maybe they still believe in us."

Marlowe understood the predicament. He even found it honourable, almost. But without consulting the group first, Preston would seem as if he were ditching the group instead of simply running an overdue errand. Admittedly, Marlowe would have done the exact same thing, but seeing someone else do it... it made him reevaluate the philosophy. It wasn't because it was cowardly, but because it was an irresponsible move performed by probably the most careful person he'd ever met. "Preston, you can't just leave them."

"And I'm not!" Preston protested. He sat on the curb next to Marlowe, meeting him at eye-level. "Listen, you need to understand that I might just be the last Minuteman out there who still gives a damn about the Commonwealth; About the cause. I need to do this. Because if help never comes to those people, then what'll happen to them? They either die demoralized or live on with their trust betrayed."

There was a moment of quiet, and both sat or squatted without uttering a single word. But as Preston was about to get up, Marlowe motioned for him to stay. "What if I go instead? On behalf of the Minutemen."

Preston scoffed. "I can't ask you to do that."

"You aren't." Marlowe contested. "I'm offering."

The last Minuteman weighed the options as he and Marlowe stood back up. "What about your kid? I can't take you off of that path anymore than I already have." he said apologetically.

Marlowe shrugged and crossed his arms. "I don't have any leads, Preston. This is day two of year one, of... who knows how long?" he said it with such a forlorn tone that he almost decided that finding his son wouldn't be worth the trouble. Massachusetts, or the Commonwealth, as it was presently regarded, was a massive place. And while he could single-mindedly pursue the kidnappers of his child without a single lead and justified heroics, there were people who needed help in the here and now. People that, while not his family, had families of their own to mind. Marlowe made part of this thought process known to Preston, ending with "...So tell me where I need to be."

Preston nodded quietly, using his laser musket as a support. "Tenpines Bluff." He clarified, giving in to Marlowe's motivation. "It's directly east of here, just past an old army outpost."

"I know the place." Marlowe said. "Station Olivia. There were a couple houses just by it, one of the staff used to live there I think." he scrolled through the map on his Pip-Boy as he spoke, the pre-war device already had the military outpost logged in, as if the previous owner had planned to go there after leaving Vault-111. "Just let me get my stuff, and... Consider it done." he finished, giving a small smile.

Preston smiled back. "You're a good person, Marlowe."  
  
"Eh, I'm alright."

"I'll find a way to return the favour, someday."

"Don't worry about it." Marlowe dismissed the notion. "I'll be back before nightfall."

 

* * *

 

 

After half an hour of preparation and with Dogmeat in tow, Marlowe decided to take the roads. While he'd never visited USAF Station Olivia personally, he was very familiar with one of its servicemen, Pat. The man long lost to time was Marlowe's first friend made in Boston, and had offered to give him a ride home on that night in January when Marlowe had arrived home, fresh off the plane from Alaska. Pat was an older man with a good heart, and while he was a patriot, was not nearly as xenophobic as society had made the country to be. His wife Kim was Japanese, and together they fought hard to have her spared from the racism of the pre-war days. In spite of the effort though, she barely left the house without Pat, not wanting to be caught alone and lynched for the origins of her ancestors' birthplace. 

Marlowe remembered Pat to be incredibly optimistic, if only about the state of the world. Pat was adamant that peace would eventually ensue between the warring factions, either by stalemate or foreign surrender. What a world for Pat to live the rest of his life in now, if he'd even survived at all. Marlowe fiddled with his laser musket while he listened to the radio, which he kept on a volume level just barely audible to him, not wanting to attract unwanted attention. Along the way to his destination he spotted a glowing, two-headed deer. It sprinted off into the blasted forest as soon as it made eye contact with Marlowe and Dogmeat. It might have been a horrendous world, but it was still beautiful in its own way.

After another hour of walking, Marlowe reached Tenpines Bluff by seven-twenty-one. The fog had only just begun to lift. True enough, the location was built on top of where Pat's house used to be, albeit in its place now was a tin shack and a small garden plot place in the former front yard. Marlowe stopped to re-imagine the plot in its past glory and hadn't noticed the door to the shack open, and was caught off guard by a stranger holding a double-barrel shotgun.

"That's close enough, asshole!" the man barked, training his weapon on Marlowe. Dogmeat barked, and growled in response, baring his teeth and ready to strike at the slightest movement. A woman peered her head out from behind the open door, scared.

Marlowe dropped his laser musket and raised his hands. "Hey, hey it's okay!" he said. "I mean you no harm-- I'm only here to help, honest!"

"Oh yeah?" the man didn't lower his weapon. "And just who the Hell are you?"

"My name is Marlowe Edwards, I'm here on behalf of the Minutemen. Preston Garvey sent me? Said you asked for help. Put down your gun, and we can talk about this."  
  
"The Minutemen?" the man muttered. "That was a week ago! I didn't think you guys were still around anymore after what happened in Quincy."

"Then why ask us for help?" Marlowe inquired. "If you knew that the Minutemen were no more, why not just hire someone? A mercenary? Those exist still, right?"

The man shrugged. He lowered his weapon, no longer seeing Marlowe as a threat. "I don't know, I... I just wanted to believe, I guess."

Marlowe didn't make a move, nor did he try to pick up his laser musket. He did lower his hands though, but not entirely, keeping them level with his chest. "Do you have names?" he asked.

"Emilio." The man answered. "That there behind me is Rachel. We're siblings; Been living here our whole lives."

"Where's everyone else, Emilio?"

"Dead, gone... Our mom died a few years ago after getting sick. Great-grandpa when we were teenagers. Anyone who wasn't family took off between that time."

"I'm sorry to hear." Marlowe said, apologetically. "Is there anything I can do?"

Emilio sighed and sat down on the steps to the shack, setting his weapon to the side. "For the past two months now, this raider boss and his goons have been harassing us for our crops; Says that this is his territory, and we need to pay a tithe, whatever the hell that is. Anyways, we give him what we can, and this works for a month. But then we get a bad harvest, and we're running out of supplies for ourselves. Last week he comes to us and he says, if we can't fork over enough food, he's going to kill us both and eat us."

"That's terrible." Marlowe remarked, horrified by Emilio's statement.

"It's typical." Emilio corrected. "I don't wanna die though. I don't want them to hurt my sister. We sent word with a passing caravan in hopes it'd reach you guys, but I think it might actually be too late."

Marlowe picked his laser musket up from the ground and shouldered it. "Maybe not. I'll deal with them. Just tell me where they are."

Emilio actually chuckled this time. "You really think you can deal with a whole gang of raiders on your own there? With... what? Your weird laser gun and the dog?"

"If that's what it takes." Marlowe promised.

Emilio and Rachel looked Marlowe over, sizing up their would-be saviour. "Alright there, hotshot." Emilio finally said. "The old car factory out in Lexington. That's where they come from. The leader goes by the name of Jared. You cut through him and his goons, and we should be safe instead of sorry."

Marlowe took in the information, unsure of the odds, but unwilling to let their request go unheeded. "Consider it done." he said. "Give me a day, maybe two, tops. If I'm not back by then, take your things and go west until you see an old truck stop. From there you'll see a bridge to an old town. You're more than welcome, and the people living there will be more than willing to house you."

"Thanks." Emilio answered. "We really appreciate you doing this."

"Don't worry about it." Marlowe assured as he turned to head South. "Folks like you deserve a chance out here. You shouldn't need to cower in the shadow of some deranged thugs."

Emilio nor Rachel said anything else. Marlowe and Dogmeat had already set out for Lexington. Mid-morning dawned on the pair, and they were met by the sun as it shewn down on the post-apocalyptic woodlands. Pillars of shadow cast themselves from the trees, and as the warmth of the late October sun enveloped the Commonwealth, Marlowe stopped caring about his long odds, and concerned himself more with the lives he'd promise to guard. He was a capable soldier, and if his run-in with the deathclaw in Concord told him anything, it was that he was here to stay.

He thought again about Shaun, hypothesizing his current whereabouts and again considering the hopelessness of the task. Regardless, Marlowe would find his child eventually, and kill the bastards who took him. It didn't matter if a few people needed help along the way; It wouldn't slow him down. Because wherever Shaun was, and whenever Marlowe found him, he was sure that he would be proud of his father.

At least, that's what Marlowe hoped.


	8. Look For The Blue Barrel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After touching base with the siblings of Tenpines Bluff, Marlowe bears South for Lexington. Unfortunately for the Sole Survivor, setbacks arise.

                                                      

 

* * *

 

Bedford station was a mere stone's throw to the south of Tenpines Bluff. One could go so far as to say that it was practically spitting distance. Before the bombs fell and the Great War both started and ended, it was a semi-lively switching station for a nearby quarry. That was about the extent of what Marlowe knew about the location, at least. Well, that, and the fact that Pat's younger brother Davis used to work there. Marlowe never met Davis in the span of time that he and Pat's friendship had been going on, but had heard from Pat's children that their uncle made the best hot dogs in Boston.

Marlowe dashed away the memory; He was doing that a lot, zoning out. Without a doctor, his best diagnosis as from the two centuries' worth of cryogenic stasis his body suffered through in Vault-111. He knelt on a hill overlooking Bedford station from the north, using his laser musket as a support to lean on while he and Dogmeat examined a terrain shrouded by ankle-length fog. While the sun had only just broken through the clouds, it was still brisk, and the cold, albeit gentle wind brushed against both of their faces.

"What do you think, Dogmeat? Seem safe?" Marlowe asked his canine companion. In turn, Dogmeat simply yawned, and butted his head against Marlowe's arm in desire of affection. "Yeah, I'm not so sure either. A shortcut's a shortcut, though." he said, obliging his dog's request. "Come on, buddy."

The pair quietly traversed down the hill, quietly making their way into the yard. Their goal was to make it to the control tower on the other end. It stood out from the rest of the bleak world, an eggshell white building standing about two stories tall with all its windows blown out. For the first few steps, everything seemed fine for Marlowe and Dogmeat. Nothing but the muted sounds of their feet stepping on damp dirt and grass filled the air. But then there was a smell; a rank odor emanating at Marlowe's feet. He looked down and noticed that he'd nearly stepped on the decomposing, rotted body of a horrendously disfigured human. 

"JESUS!" he yelped, performing a sort of pirouette and backpedalling a few steps. He'd seen a corpse before-- made many, even-- but never did he stick around after the fact. A mortician was never a sought out career for him, that was certain. In any case, Marlowe didn't have time to ponder how long the body had been there or what fate befell it, because not even a moment later he learned the latter. Truth be told, it was _worse_ than death.

Thrown off by the glutteral moaning the physical movement, Marlowe trained his weapon on what could effectively be called a zombie, albeit one made by radiation instead of disease. It wasn't the only one, in the yard, though. Rising from the fog layer alone were another five, and all of them shamble towards the sole survivor and his dog. Marlowe backed away, horrified and admittedly frightened by what he perceived to be the living dead. He froze, while Dogmeat snarled and barked, taking a stand against the abominations. It wasn't until one of them began to charge at him did Marlowe act.

In spite of hesitation, Marlowe swiftly struck the charging zombie his the butt of his laser musket as it attempted to pounce while he backed away from the minor horde. The zombie reeled from the hit, doing a complete three-sixty before falling to the ground like a sack of discarded vegetables. The others began to charge, and Marlowe cranked the laser musket to a full charge while Dogmeat tore away at the initial decomposing assailant. The zombies encroached from every direction, and Marlowe _really_ needed to act. He was damned if his third challenge in the Commonwealth was going to be his last. 

The laser musket's laser blast cracked through the air, a loud whine sounded over the moans and growling of the zombies. The shot landed on one to Marlowe's two o'clock, and the shambling corpse disintegrated into a pile of ash without so much as a wince. Marlowe took the opportunity and sprinted through the ash pile and the newly made opening with Dogmeat at his side. Dead ahead was a utility shed with a station platform occupied by a lone flatbed train car with broken blocks of white rock and rubble scattered about the vicinity. 

Marlowe clambered onto the traincar and only had time to roll onto his back as another of the zombies ambushed him. Using his weapon as a restraint, Marlowe struggled to keep the grotesque monster's claws away from him while the rest of the pack closed in. The full weight of the zombie was becoming too much for the sole survivor to handle, but Dogmeat lunged at the attacker, performing an impressive airborne leap and pouncing viciously on the living dead that posed an immediate threat to Marlowe, performing what might as well have been his signature throat-gouging kill.

"I owe you, pal." Marlowe groaned, staggering to his feet. The utility shed was well within grasp now. Marlowe threw his musket through a gap in a window adjacent to the door and watched as Dogmeat followed suit. Not thinking to do the same, or simply not wanting to risk being eviscerated by broken glass, Marlowe used the door.

Thankfully, like any zombie, these monsters lacked any higher motor function, and simply threw themselves at the door and the broken window. Marlowe drew his pistol and began to open fire while he shouted expletives in the general direction of his predators. One by one, each zombie met an end via a varied 10mm bullets, practically making themselves fish in a barrel in spite of the present scenario. After expending two clips, the remaining three-- joined by an additional two that were lazing about in the miniature maze of rock on the flatbed car-- were no more than rotting carcasses, but now finally at rest.

"I don't know how you do it, Dogmeat," Marlowe said, panting between sentences. "This world is getting worse and worse every second I spend in it. That was my first run-in with zombies, and I gotta say... Not my thing."

Dogmeat barked in response, nudging the laser musket Marlowe had thrown through the window in haste as if he were urging his new owner to press on. 

Marlowe obliged, picking up the scuffed rifle and exiting out through a door at the far end of the single room building. He prepared his laser musket, now more alert than he ever was. He was certainly not in the mood for another zombie ambush. The wind picked up into a gentle breeze, and with the sun coming into full view, the fog began to part. Marlowe noted the occasional sound of a crow in the distance, somewhat relieved that another mundane animal survived the end times. Dogmeat was the first to make the presence of another corpse in the grass known, prompting his owner to train the sights of his laser musket on the fallen stranger.

"This one's not decomposed to Hell..." Marlowe noted, approaching the body with caution. He knelt down next to the deceased person, inspecting the scene. Before him lay a man with dirty blonde hair, wearing a pocketed leather coat and tan cargo pants. The cause of death wasn't immediately recgonized amidst a couple of sparsely-placed bullet wounds, but as Marlowe surveyed the body, it became evident that the man's neck had been broken. Dogmeat whimpered mournfully, expectantly waiting for his owner's reassurance. 

"It wasn't the zombies that got him." Marlowe concluded, patting his dog. "Probably better off that way..."

Marlowe mourned the stranger. His death was recent, given the state of the man's corpse and the lack of decomposition. In an ideal world, maybe he and Marlowe could have crossed paths, for better or worse. But just as the sole survivor was about to move on, he noticed a ball of crumpled up paper in the man's hand. Marlowe gingerly plucked it from the stranger's dead grip and unfolded the parchment. It read as followed:

 

_'Deliver your package to the old switching station._

_The runner arrives at midnight._

_I_ _f you need gear, look for the blue barrel.'_

 

"Blue barrel, what?" Marlowe surveyed the landscape around him; There were a least a dozen blue barrels laying around. He paused for a moment, glancing down at the dead man at his feet and once more at the surrounding area. It was like being blindfolded and spun around, just before laying into a pinata with a stick. He chose at random, opting for a blue boxcar he'd either neglected to acknowledge as he'd passed or completely ignored in the ensuing chaos with the zombies. He approached with caution, aiming his laser musket forward and preparing for any surprise attacks. His diligence was rewarded, he assumed, when he spotted not one, but multiple blue barrels inside the train car. Accompanying them, was a peculiar symbol; An asterisk scrawled onto the wall in white chalk, with what Marlowe assumed to be a teardrop in the centre. He raised an eyebrow, and shared a look with Dogmeat before closing in.

A single blue barrel had it's lid slightly ajar, and when Marlowe looked inside, the sound of confusion was the only thing uttered. He grasped at the unknown object, which appeared to be a sort of elaborate firearm that gave off the impression that it was thrown together with haste and disregard. I sported a wooden stock, already splintering, and something that Marlowe could only assumed to be a box for ammunition where a firearm's receiver would typically be, and another box-like piece where the muzzle was supposedly located.

"Well that's ah... dangerous." Marlowe remarked. He considered the weapon for a moment only after he spotted a handful of railway spikes in the bottom of the barrel. Instead, he chose to take the ammunition and two abandoned stimpacks and move on, not wanting to over-encumber himself. He whistled for Dogmeat to follow, and made for the checking station he'd intended to investigate before carrying on with his mission. 

The building also bore a strange marking like the cache in the train car, the only difference being that instead of a teardrop, it was a house. Was this a safe house of some kind? There certainly wasn't much to it, especially when Marlowe had made it up the stairs. A lone computer terminal sat on a desk. "Nora used one of these at work..." Marlowe recalled.

To his luck, someone had already logged in, but judging by the thin layer of dust, it hadn't been touched in ages. You had to hand it to the manufacturers: even after the occurrence of nuclear war, their product persisted the elements. Marlowe indulged, inquisitively tapping the navigational keys with care. At first, there was nothing of note; A few cargo manifests, regulations, controls for a non-existent spotlight... until he reached the bottom of the index, spotting a prompt to eject a holodisk. Marlowe obliged, plucking the storage device from the terminal before inserting it into his Pip-Boy. The tape whirred for a moment, then clicked and began to play.

At first it was only the sounds of distant footsteps which grew louder as it seemed that multiple people were walking up the stairs. Suddenly the people rushed up the stairs. _"It's half-past. She's late."_ said an airy voice.

 _"No... something's wrong."_ a second voice reflected. This one was deeper, with a Bostonian accent.  
  
There was another spell of silence, followed by shuffling. _"Someone's coming. Look! Five of them!"_

The person with the Bostonian accent cursed, and sounded like their were loading ammunition into a weapon. His voice was just above a whisper. _"It's a trap! Dammit, they've got us surrounded."_

 _"What do we do?"_ the airy voice asked, worried. Their voice trembled, it was clear they were scared now.

 _"I'll draw them off. Give me a count of ten, then break for the treeline."_   the Bostonian instructed. The airy voice tried to protest, but was interrupted. _"Good luck, A-9."_

The Bostonian rushed down the steps while the airy voice-- identified as A-9-- quietly counted down as gunfire erupted in the background. Something robotic spoke, and uniform footsteps marched up the stairs, into the sole room of the building, and stopped in unison. A-9 whimpered, and a singular set of footsteps approached them.  
  
_"No!"_ A-9 shouted in protest. _"I'm not going back! I can't! I won't!"_

The tape stopped dead there, prematurely cut off. Marlowe was left in silence again. Dogmeat joined his side as his exhaled worriedly and looked outside. The Bostonian must have been the dead man in the grass just outside. Whatever had happened, he died in vain, trying to protecting someone. Whoever their assailants were, they were precise, and they certainly left no trace of their identities. Dogmeat whimpered in concern for Marlowe, the latter of which was visibly unnerved by the recording. He ejected the tape and stowed it in his bag, unsure of what to do with it, or of what to do next.

Whatever the case, it was a sign to move on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Been a while.
> 
> Sorry it's been so long-- I started doing post-secondary stuff and work has picked up a lot-- Haven't really found the time or motivation to write. Thanks for sticking around, though. More to come, and assuredly much more frequently-- I really wanna get through this bit so the plot can REALLY advance, you know? 
> 
> Thanks again!
> 
> ~BEB0P105.
> 
> P.S. Fallout 76 amirite?!?!


	9. The Literal Boomtown

                                                             

* * *

 

Minutes after his experience at Bedford station, Marlowe drew closer to the former community of Lexington. Known in his time as "Corvega Town", due to the massive vehicle assembly plant that dominated the southern part of the area. Marlowe on the other hand knew Lexington as a name he would have absolutely chosen for himself. Well, that or Kurt, maybe. Dogmeat scampered delightfully after the sole survivor as they climbed onto the guardrail of a raised bridge in order to pass a derelict locomotive. 

"You know when I was a kid, I always wanted to drive one of these things." Marlowe explained to his canine companion, referring to the two-story monstrous machine obstructing their path. "These ones were always kind of daunting, though. The ones back home were a lot more... modest."

Dogmeat responded with a huff, seemingly distracted by the abandoned drive-in that lay in the near distance to their right.

Marlowe took notice to this as he sidled past the train, pretending to be in a theatrical balancing act, arms outstretched to counterbalance. "I took Nora there a couple of times." He addressed. "We watched this ah... it was this romance movie, with Vera Keyes? What was it called..."

Marlowe trailed off into silence when he thought he noticed a glint in the treeline adjacent to the drive-in. Maybe his mind was playing tricks on him? Nevertheless, it prompted him to move a bit more quickly. He checked to make sure his laser musket was charged at least three times between the distance of the bridge and the parking garage he and Dogmeat cut through. They were effectively in enemy territory now, if Emilio's info was accurate. The distressed settler had no legitimate reason to lie, but it was more the lack of experience actually being in Lexington that rendered the details of the raiders' whereabouts lucrative. The whole town might as well have been theirs as far as Marlowe was concerned.

To be entirely turthful, Marlowe didn't remember much of anything about Lexington aside from its potential as a given name. He was thankful for the size of the Corvega plant so that his only real method of navigation was to simply head in the general direction of the facility. But just as relief swathed over him and he passed by an abandoned Super-Duper Mart, he found himself exposed in the town square. It wasn't until Dogmeat's warning barks that he snapped out of his tunnel vision and realized he'd walked into a quartet of living dead like the ones back at Bedford.

He swore out loud, and fired a shot at the nearest one just as it began to groggily rise from its slumber, rendering it nothing but ash. Dogmeat sought a separate zombie and gnashed at its throat while Marlowe cranked his laser musket back to full power. He picked off another one as it scrambled for him, this one simply rag-dolling to the forward and to the ground as its head rendered itself useless with the burnt out, fist-sized hole now in the place where a nose would be. Another four or five poured out from the ruins of Lexington's square, and Marlowe shook his head.

Suddenly, he heard laughter from behind and above. Marlowe looked in the general direction as he cranked his laser musket back to life and spotted a small group of living humans in haphazardly-made armour razzing him from a bridge high above the street behind him. Each carried a crude weapon made from copper pipe and discarded wood. They were raiders, to be sure. Marlowe groaned and turned his attention back to the zombies, watching Dogmeat finish off another before making a small jump out of the way of one that attempted to fall on the animal.

"This isn't looking good, buddy." Marlowe called as he landed a laser blast in the abdomen of a zombie. It recoiled, but still continued its assault. A gunshot from above landed at his feet and made him jump. "Stay close to me, pal!"

The living dead closed in fast this time, and Marlowe barely had time to bludgeon one as it got too close for for comfort after dodging another light salvo of small arms fire from the raiders above. One round grazed his leg-- enough to make him wince-- and finally he had had enough. One overcharged blast was spent on the road sign that protected the raiders, but it cost Marlowe his attentiveness of the decomposing horrors behind him, and one managed to leap onto his back and force him to the ground. If it wasn't for Dogmeat's quick thinking, the zombie would have already sank what was left of its teeth into Marlowe's neck.

Meanwhile, the raiders on the connection deemed the struggle over, and their leader-- an individual in power armour-- hoisted a catapult-like launcher into firing position on their shoulder. Another raider then placed a football-sized warhead into the launcher. The power armoured raider took a couple of seconds to aim and adjust, then launched the projectile skyward, determined to eradicate their entertainment and the infestation of former humanity.

Marlowe rose to his knees in time to watch the projectile soar skyward, whistling as it gained altitude. "Oh, shit..."

Anyone with an elderly relative who's fought in a war will tell you that you never worry about the artillery that you _can_ hear. Rather, it's the shell you _don't_ hear that you should worry about... and that's just what Marlowe did. He wasted zero time. He picked up Dogmeat, and ran as fast as his stunned condition would let him as the whistling went away and the projectile declined in height and fell towards his position. He ran back the way he and Dogmeat had come from, the alleyway next to the Super-Duper Mart, and tossed his dog forward. Marlowe tripped over his dropped laser musket and toppled forward, covering his head with his hands and anticipating the coming explosion.

Marlowe thought about nothing but Nora. He thought about every aspect of her being, from her outspoken attitude, to her warm smile that greeted him every morning, to their first moments with Shaun.

Was this how it would end for him?

Dying on some errant quest to dissipate the worries of a couple of scared strangers?

I mean, no. Not even a little.

 

* * *

 

 

The detonation came and went. One loud, thunderous crash, and the wind at his back... Marlowe didn't dare open his eyes. He laid sideways in the fetal position for several minutes, petrified by the attempted shelling. He remained so until Dogmeat returned, worriedly trying to invade his owner's personal space.

"I... did we live?" Marlowe's voice cracked as he asked the world. He looked up and met his canine companion's nose which rampantly sniffed his person. Soon after, his breathing returned to a normal rhythm. He hugged his dog and stroked their fur coat, wiping away flecks of gravel and dirt as he centred himself. "That was a nightmare."

Marlowe looked back at the way he and Dogmeat had ran and spotted signs of a small crater made by the miniature nuke. He winced as the damage done reminded him of the nuke that dropped just as the platform to Vault-111 descended into the ground. He recalled the feeling of impending wind and watching the gust rampage overhead as he and the now not-so-fortunate residents of Sanctuary Hills cowered on the elevator platform.

 

_'A nightmare.'_

 

He huffed. Dogmeat looked at Marlowe expectantly and watched him pick up the laser musket he'd dropped during the retreat. Marlowe shouldered the homemade weapon and drew his pistol, beckoning for Dogmeat to follow. "Let's try this again, huh?"

Marlowe decidedly chose the stealthy approach for the second attempt to progress deeper into the town. Instead of returning to the square where he and Dogmeat held their ground against the irradiated zombies, they dipped into an alleyway not far from the building that the raiders had set up their lookout post in. It took the pair through a run-down shop, an abandoned garage, and into a derelict bank. The latter of which provided an exit through a massive hole in the wall of their vault, a scene which was accompanied by a duo of skeletons and a rusted sports car with no wheels. If Marlowe had to surmise, the pair were gunned down by law enforcement shortly before or after the nukes had dropped on Massachusetts. He found the hypothetical almost humorous, granting himself a singular huff of amusement.

The sudden sound of not-so-distant voices froze Marlowe in place. He looked around for the source, then concealed himself back inside the bank vault as he looked at upper levels of a red-bricked building and watched multiple shadows (three, if he had to guess.) pass by a window. He could just barely back out their conversation. One mentioned a "fat man" in reference to the weapon to had catapulted the mini nuke at Marlowe. Another mentioned that someone named Tannen had ordered for them to... something. Search, maybe? Marlowe couldn't make it out.

Nevertheless, Marlowe still had a job to do. He made a shush gesture at Dogmeat, and shouldered his laser musket to draw the sawn-off shotgun he plucked from a dead drifter outside of Sanctuary from his bag. After ensuring himself that it was loaded, they crept out of the bank vault and over to a blasted opening in the red building where the raiders resided. Marlowe chose his steps carefully, and Dogmeat followed suit, in turn. The progress made was substantial, but the lack of raiders met along the way made him paranoid of ambushes. Surely enough though, he jinxed himself.

A set of stairs he and Dogmeat ventured up led them into an apartment on the third partially exposed to the elements due to a large portion of the wall that now resided in the alleyway. That was the best feature of the former living space, however. What really soured the feng shui were the quartet of zombies lying dormant on a floor of degraded carpet. Marlowe groaned inaudibly, visibly throwing his head back in exasperation. He considered turning back, but the sounds of footsteps climbing down the stairs hampered such a maneuver. Stuck between a rock and a batch of zombies, he decided to bite the bullet.

 

_'Tiptoe through the tulips'_

 

Marlowe swallowed, and began navigating through the gruesome maze with apprehensive grace, cursing himself for having so much equipment on hand. In spite of his military training, and having to lug around fifty-pounds worth of equipment in the harshest of environments, it was something that never sat right with the discharged soldier who expected to die during every patrol of the Alaskan warzone two centuries ago. Marlowe sucked it up and watched Dogmeat follow his tracks. The sole survivor couldn't help but to be proud of his new companion and their impressive intellect. He'd make sure to find a treat for him later, assuming they made it out of this hell. 

The admiration was cut short, however. All that time internally praising his dog took his attention away from the person coming up the stairs, as well as the haste needed to go unseen. Marlowe had little to no time to train the sights of his weapon at the raider who'd just entered the apartment, looking just as unsettled by the dormant abominations, seemingly unaware of the zombies residing in the building with them. The raider, a white male with incredibly dirty skin wearing nothing more than a worker's harness over a pair pants work boots, quietly drew a combat knife and crept forward, the blade aimed straight at Marlowe.

The only sound to break the silence was Dogmeat's growl. Marlowe steadied his aim on the raider more indignantly, silently warning the raider to not come any closer. In that maniac's mind, Marlowe had to assume, is that the raider thought that he had the advantage on for being made the first person to win the age-old dilemma of bringing a knife to a gunfight. Only in this case, the playing field was a littered with the carnivorous dead. The raider drew closer, putting a finger his lips to mockingly shush the vault-suited intruder. Very soon, Marlowe would need to put up or fuck up.

It was a moment that felt like hours, and Marlowe hesitated. Dogmeat took initiative instead, and broke the silence with rabid barking. The raider was the second to break the silence, swearing as the zombies began to stir. Marlowe acted on instinct and fired at the raider's knee, grotesquely severing the limb from its body while the host fell and screamed in agony. But before the raider could experience the horror of being eaten alive, Marlowe did the merciful thing; He shot the raider in the head. It wasn't a clean death, nor was it painless... but it was certainly better than the alternative.

Marlowe fumbled around in his bag for another pair of shells as he and Dogmeat backed through what was probably the front door and into the hallway. The zombies fed on the fresh corpse, allowing Marlowe time to make his way further up the building. It was a panicked climb up the next set of stairs. He could hear more raiders on this floor, of which were alerted to the sounds of barking and gunfire.

"Did you fuckin' hear that?" asked one.

"Of course I fucking heard that, dumbass!" another answered. "The dog must've survived!"

Marlowe rolled his eyes.

"Fuck... we sent Todd down to the Ghoul room." added the first, her tone somewhat regretful. 

"Stupid bastard's probably dead now..."

In the darkness of the fourth floor, Marlowe allowed the second raider to pass by, and glanced at the way they'd come; The other raider was nowhere to be seen. It was an ideal time for an ambush, and the sole survivor certainly obliged. Marlower forewent the opportunity to shoot the raider, and instead bashed him over the head with his weapon, staggering the man. He was taller than Marlowe-- Six feet, easily-- but he fell forward all the same, allowing Marlowe to strangle the raider from behind, using his full body weight to keep the lawless guard pinned to the floor while they were deprived of oxygen. Once satisfied, Marlowe delivered another blow to the back of the raider's face-down head for good measure, but did not do so undetected.

"Hey, what the FUCK!" the first raider exclaimed. Marlowe turned his head as she drew a snub-nosed revolver, and rolled out of the way for a shot the never came as Dogmeat latched onto her shooting arm with his powerful bite. 

"Good dog!" Marlowe said just before body-checking the raider into a window. A follow-up shot with his shotgun successfully defenestrated a probably already-dead raider, and their body fell to the street below. Marlowe didn't hear the body hit the pavement, but still winced. He picked up the Molotov cocktail the raider had dropped in the confusion, and carried on.

He exited the hallway and entered a room that connected to a bridge between the red-bricked building he resided in to one across the street. It was the same bridge that the raiders had launched the nuke at him from. He peered through the threshold at the occupants on the bridge, spotting two raiders, one a woman with poorly maintained hair and black paint smeared over her face, and the other wearing power armour with homemade plating comprised of scrap metal and rebar. With more examination, Marlowe could spot hints of T-51 plating.

Marlowe took a deep breath. It sounded as if they were mobilizing, and soon would come to investigate the disturbances from inside. He could also hear the "ghouls" downstairs, and it seemed as though they had finished with the raider formerly known as Todd. He reloaded his shotgun; There was no going back. Marlowe locked eyes with Dogmeat and counted down from four. 

 

_'Four'_

 

Dogmeat shook himself, clearing his fur of dirt.

 

_'Three'_

 

Marlowe closed his eyes, and thought of Nora. He thought about potentially dying here, eaten by the ghouls on the floor below, or being gunned down by the raiders on the bridge.

 

_'Two'_

 

He would die a hero, he thought. Dying in an effort to help the innocent.

 

_'One'_

 

Nora would be proud of him. Even Preston. And that would be all that mattered.

 

_'NOW!'_

 

As fluid as the first brush stroke on a new canvas, Marlowe dipped out of cover and killed the female raider with a swift, singular shot from his shotgun. She dropped without knowing what hit her. As she died however, the raider in haphazardly constructed power armour turned. Mid-way they recieved damage from Marlowe's weapon, and the cage obscuring their faceplate wasn't enough to protect them from the ten-gauge shell. With no weapons and the fat-man out of order due to the lack of ammunition (not to mention the heinousness of thinking to use one at point-blank range), the raider known as Tannen charged Marlowe as the latter finished putting new shells into their sawn-off. 

"Y'think you can just roll in here, and kill my grunts, you little shit?!" he berated, attempting to backhand Marlowe with an armoured hand. The vault-dweller ducked out of the way in time, and non-verbally returned the question with a point-blank shot to the mid-section, a vulnerable point on the home-made suit. The damage was severe, and enough to make Tannen recoil and stagger back, knocking the fat-man off of the bridge and into the street below. Before he could recover, he was hit by another shell, this time aimed at his head. He was lucky enough that the helmet absorbed the blow, but was now rendered useless.

Marlowe didn't navigate through his bag this time. He discarded the shotgun, being mindful not to let it fall off of the bridge, and drew his 10mm pistol. The raider in power armour was quick to interrupt, and grabbed Marlowe by the free arm, taking the sole survivor by surprise. They lifted Marlowe off of his feet, and with their free hand, grabbed their helmet and pulled it off.

What was revealed, Marlowe was not remotely prepared for, and he screamed in horror at the raider, who screamed back in rage.

The raider's face was something he'd seen only moments ago, on the third floor. Only this time, instead of a feral shadow of a former human, it was living, and coherent, and... alive. 

Marlowe had met his first, non-feral ghoul.

And in the current situation... It was mortifying.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written by: Bebop105  
> Proofread by: bugabear
> 
> Thanks for reading! More to come, I promise! Don't shy away from leaving a comment or asking a question or leaving kudos, please.


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